President Putin: Russia will lose sovereignty if it uses oil and gas to buy everything

According to TASS, Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin emphasized that Russia will lose its competitiveness, and with it its sovereignty, if it does not develop its own industries, including the automotive industry. This is Putin's comment on his decision in the late 1990s to prevent the industry from being destroyed.

President Putin admitted that many in the government believe it is necessary to abandon car production, because Russia is "deeply behind", and consumers need "good cars at low prices".

“But there is another side to the coin,” the Russian president noted, “If we are not technological leaders, then we should talk about technological independence.”

“If we buy everything in exchange for oil and gas, and now the situation is such that they are trying to cut off both oil and gas, then Russia will lose its competitiveness, and then its sovereignty,” Putin added.

So, the Russian president said, he did not agree with suggestions to buy everything abroad. “And we started developing our own auto industry,” Putin said.

That is why Russia was able to recreate a network of enterprises to produce components for the automotive industry - this is one of the signs of the viability of the country's economy.

"For example, Avtovaz has 1,500 partner enterprises. What kind of partners are these? These are mainly manufacturers of key components. This is another very important component of the automotive industry. Because in modern conditions it is impossible to produce a car without a large number of component manufacturing enterprises. And we managed to recreate this industry, this network. You know, this is one of the signs of the viability of the entire economy," the Russian President stressed.