A prosecutor who led Russia’s state seizures of Domodedovo Airport and other assets was fired, then quietly reinstated — with no public record of either move

Sergei Bochkarev, the leader of Russia's Prosecutor General's Office civil litigation department, was recently reinstated following his dismissal in late July. According to sources, this decision was initially made by President Vladimir Putin via a decree signed on July 27. However, this decree has since been revoked. The source of this information is the anonymous Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, as well as the Russian outlet Rucriminal.info.

They also published a screenshot of the presidential decree dismissing Bochkarev, though this document is not present on the government's official legal acts portal. There is no record of his return to the Prosecutor General's Office either. The Russian business daily Kommersant reported his dismissal in late July and highlighted his role in overseeing the seizure of business assets and transferring them to state ownership.

This included the seizure of control of Domodedovo Airport, Makfa, and the Yuzhuralzoloto Group of Companies (YUGK). According to Kommersant, Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan had expressed dissatisfaction with Bochkarev's work, but did not specify the reason.