Satellite imagery shows new buildings occupying a noticeably larger footprint than the former residence, with construction continuing into autumn 2026. The authorities have made no public announcement of either the demolition or the new construction, BBC Russian reported.
Journalists found a 25-digit contract number in a court ruling on a dispute between contractors. Such identifiers are issued to state defense procurement and are not published in open registries. The structure of the number indicates the contract covers 2023–2027 and was signed before the old residence was demolished. The procurement was conducted without a tender or auction; the price is fixed but its size is unknown.
The general contractor is Gruppa Kompaniy Transstroyinvest, registered in annexed Crimea. Its beneficiary is considered to be developer Alexei Fomenko, whom Russian media have linked to Arkady Rotenberg. The company's structures previously took part in building a presidential residence in the Crimean settlement of Oliva, and in 2021 the government appointed GK TSI as general contractor for the reconstruction of Artek without a tender, replacing Rotenberg's Stroygazmontazh. In 2022–2025 the company received 54 contracts there worth about 28 billion rubles.
The general contractor passed a significant share of the work to subcontractors. Within the first months of construction, several contracts ended in court: the Sevastopol design institute Voenmorproekt-30 fell behind schedule; violations were found in the work of Orenburg-based SK Bashnya on the walls of the main house; and Moscow-region company Renmedia missed deadlines for dismantling sewage and water pipes during the reconstruction of the commandant's office and a laundry with an annex for a special kitchen.
Workers were recruited through social media and job sites. In the advertisements the site was called "strategic," with piece-rate payment in cash, three meals a day and accommodation in a "hostel with a pool" promised, and strict vetting warned of. Initially only Russian citizens without criminal records were hired, later also citizens of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Budgets for individual subcontracts in the advertisements found ranged from 90 million to 500 million rubles.
The construction continues as Putin visits Sochi less often. According to Financial Times estimates, before the war he traveled there 24 times, in 2022 — 13 times, and in 2024 and 2025 — only twice each year. The drop in trips coincided with more frequent Ukrainian drone attacks on the Black Sea coast. In 2026 the FSO decided to create a protected zone of more than three square kilometers around the residence.
At the southern edge of the residence, the Bocharov Ruchey-2 building, constructed for the 2014 Olympics, remains; Putin receives high-ranking guests there. The state dacha itself appeared long before Putin: it was begun in Soviet times, later used by Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, and after the collapse of the USSR by Boris Yeltsin.