Today, at a meeting with the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, Vladimir Putin spoke in support of the opinion repeatedly expressed in the State Duma that a Russian official should drive a Russian car.
Ministries, departments, and the administrative department have requested to continue [purchases], to focus, in fact, on foreign-made cars, to continue this practice. I said that this should be absolutely excluded and all officials of the country should drive domestic cars.
The meeting with Putin was also attended by the president of AvtoVAZ, Maxim Sokolov, and Denis Manturov is the chairman of the board of the Volga Automobile Plant. It is quite obvious that the main beneficiary of the decisions that may be taken after this meeting will be AvtoVAZ.
It should be noted that VAZ will have something to offer Russian officials, and we are not talking about Granta at all. In June, the plant presented a stretched and luxury version of the Lada Vesta with a 1.8-liter engine and a variator called Lada Aura. Even then, Maxim Sokolov hinted that Aura would be quite suitable for officials.
Well, for officials of a higher rank, the company will offer the Chinese liftback FAW Bestune B70 under the Lada brand - the production of such cars should begin in the near future at the "Lada St. Petersburg" plant (this is the former Nissan plant).