Putin calls Volkswagen's withdrawal from Russia in vain

Volkswagen's departure from Russia was in vain, as the company faced problems. This statement was made by Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 4.

He noted that the Russian Federation had good relations with Germany for decades. According to him, the distinctive feature of German investments was investment in industry.

"Now look at the problems Volkswagen is having. Well, why did Volkswagen leave the Russian market? It would not only work here, so not only would it sell its products even in the conditions of a high level of localization of these products, but it would also continue to supply components and receive remarkable revenue," he said at the plenary session of the VTB forum "Russia Calling!".

"Now you can blame anything on the management of Volkswagen, as long as you don't notice your own mistakes. In this case, I'm talking about those regulators at the level of the government, which make the relevant decisions," he added.

Earlier, on December 2, it became known that in Germany, the workers of nine plants of Volkswagen concern, producing cars and components, began a strike. It was specified that this contributed to the stoppage of assembly lines.

Prior to that, on October 30, Volkswagen during negotiations with the IG Metall union offered to cut workers' salaries by 10% to save jobs. The company said it could not meet the union's demands, which included a 7% wage hike and reinstatement of collective bargaining agreements. Before that, on October 29, Volkswagen and BMW employees began the first wave of strikes in Germany.

On October 28, Volkswagen Group said it was going to close three plants in Germany and cut tens of thousands of employees as part of reorganization and to reduce costs. It was reported that the measure will affect plants in Osnabrück, Dresden and Emden. In the government of Germany, the probable reason for these measures called wrong decisions of the concern's management and called to save as many jobs as possible.