Why is the steering wheel Chinese?! Russian PM attacks domestic automaker over foreign parts – POLITICO

“We want it to be Russian,” he added, as shown in a video posted on the Russian government’s Telegram channel.

Mishustin, a loyal Kremlin technocrat who usually goes unnoticed, was reappointed this month as head of President Vladimir Putin’s government, while the Kremlin boss reshuffled other key posts.

China has remained a key ally of Russia and proved vital to its economy in the face of Western sanctions imposed after Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s auto industry has been hit hard by Western sanctions and the departure of many foreign automakers. Subsequently, Chinese automakers have played a major role in maintaining the viability of the sector.

However, Chinese car sales appear to have peaked as Russia works to revive domestic production.

This includes the revival of Soviet-era Volga cars – a production project that will exceed 60 billion rubles (around 600 million euros) and is expected to launch in 2024, according to Russian news agency TASS.

Putin previously called on Russian officials to only drive domestically produced vehicles.

“Ministries, agencies and business administration have asked to continue (purchasing), to put emphasis, in fact, on cars manufactured abroad, to continue this practice,” he said. declared last summer. “I said that this should be absolutely ruled out and that all officials in the country should drive national cars.”