Russia seeks private sector aid for airport reconstruction after booting out foreign companies

There was a time, during the early 2000s, during President Putin's first term in office, when Russia (like China) briefly opened its doors to foreign airport investment - in its case in a small number of regional airports - mainly with the aim of boosting tourism opportunities.

They didn't work out.

Then in 2010 Germany's Fraport AG, as part of the Northern Capital Gateway consortium, with Greece's Copelouzos Group and Russia's VTB Capital, took control of St Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport under a public-private partnership agreement (PPP) with the Russian government.

That did work out quite well for all parties, until the Ukraine War and a growing sense of paranoia over foreign ownership of airports in Russia, together with European distaste, put paid to it. Further examples of tinkering with ownership regimes took place, and effectively a 'not for sale' notice went up at the country's gates.

Merely a couple of years on, and the government is desperately trying to find private sector investors in a host of crumbling regional airports, its coffers laid bare by the war and its airport operators, public and private alike, trying to hold the line in the face of tanking passenger numbers and a host of other economic fault lines.

So who will take on this job?

Could the government relent and find a way of inviting foreign investors back? If it did, who would take the risk and battle with an even more entrenched bureaucracy? (Not to mention the opprobrium with which they would be met by their own investors and peers).