‘Russia’s Automobile Industry Died on February 24,’ Aslanyan Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 1 – Much as France’s automobile industry died when the Germans occupied that country early in World War II, “Russia’s automobile industry died on February 24” when Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine and Western firms stopped supplying that sector with needed parts, Sergey Aslanyan says.

            Some firms in the industry stopped immediately and completely, while others sought to limp along, the expert on the sector says; but the most unwelcome development “turned out to be “the synchronous death of enterprises” at the start of war, with the closing of Western firms leading to the closing of Russian ones (theins.ru/opinions/sergei-aslanyan/254494).

            Soviet and then Russian automobile manufacturers “considered it more profitable to use foreign inventions” rather than to come up with their own, a reasonable position until the foreign ones became unavailable as they did after February 24, Aslanyan says. Then the game was up in this sector.

            Indeed, February 24^th showed that in Russia, “there are no engineers, builders, technologies, materials, and means of production capable of rapidly replacing the disappearing foreign suppliers.” Moscow thought it could replace Western suppliers with ones from China, Iran and India, but that hasn’t worked well, the specialist on the auto industry says.

            In response, Russian automakers have gone back to producing Soviet-era models which relied far less heavily on imported parts. These cars and trucks are less efficient and useful than the more recent models; but this strategy is the only one that is working – and it is likely the case not just in the automobile sector but in others as well.

            All the talk about a strategy for 2035 is just that, Aslanyan continues. It is talk. Unless Russia can create all the various parts of the industry and train the people needed to operate it, the best the country will be able to do is to produce cars and trucks like those the Soviets did 50 years ago or more – with all the problems that will entail.

            That means that Russia will be starting almost from scratch in this area rather than building on something that continues to function properly.