Russia is introducing an export ban on cars and more than 200 other products in response to Western sanctions imposed in response to the war in Ukraine. This is reported by the NOS. However, the ban does not seem to affect European car brands, if at all.
Many Western, but also some non-Western companies, have ceased their Russian activities since the war in Ukraine. Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, among others, closed their factories in Russia. They mainly produced for the domestic (ie Russian) market, so the export ban would not have affected them. According to the Russian analyst firm Autostat, Volkswagen exported 11,500 Russian Volkswagens and Skodas to the CIS countries (the former Soviet states, including Ukraine) in 2021.
One manufacturer likely to be affected by the export ban is Lada parent company AvtoVAZ, which is owned by the Renault Group. Of the total number of cars exported from Russia in 2021 according to Autostat (89,100 units), 35,800 units came from AvtoVAZ.
At Stellantis, the plan to produce commercial vehicles for the Western European market has been thrown into the trash due to the Russian ban. At the beginning of this year, the group announced that it wanted to build export versions of the Peugeot Expert, Opel Vivaro and Citroën Jumpy in Kaluga, a place about 190 kilometers southwest of Moscow. That party is therefore canceled for the time being, so that the demand for these models must be met by the factories in France and the United Kingdom.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl