Auto manufacturing in Russia grounds to a halt

 Telegraph:

Ilya, a manager at a Volkswagen factory in western Russia, was busy discussing plans for a company-supported family event in the spring when the war in Ukraine broke out.

Just a few months later, the plant, the jewel in the crown of Russia’s car industry, and Illya’s workplace for nearly a decade, had shut down.

“Volkswagen’s management kept telling us they were waiting for the special operation to be over and that everything would be all right,” the 33-year-old said, taking care to use the Kremlin’s terminology rather than risking arrest.

“I have nothing to rebuke them for but I’m sorry it’s all over now. I spent a third of my life there.”

Production at the vast Volkswagen factory in Nizhny Novgorod ground to a halt in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

After 11 years of and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, western sanctions spelled the end for the plant. The measures targeting Volkswagen’s Russian manufacturing partner GAZ came into effect in late May.

The factory in the city on the Volga river had hundreds of employees and was emblematic of the aspirations of Russia’s middle classes, who, after the economic boom of the 2000s, embraced foreign travel and goods and services.

Ilya went to work at the Volkswagen plant straight from university and tried his hand at different roles, from on-site quality control to dealing with post-purchase complaints.

In his ten years at the factory, Ilya got married, got a mortgage and paid it off. He was laid off along with 200 other employees.

“It was a very emotional moment when I came to work to get my papers: a few female colleagues were even crying. The life we had was over,” he said.

Western sanctions have left Russia’s automotive industry in tatters. New car sales crashed by 82 per cent in June, compared to the same month last year.

At least ten car factories, all of them foreign-owned, have suspended operations in Russia in recent months, devastating the sector and forcing tens of thousand workers on furlough.
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This is more evidence of the damage Putin's war in Ukraine is doing to the Russian economy.  It is a blunder of huge proportions that has weakened Russian both militarily and economically.