Ex-Magna boss Siegfried Wolf, who has worked in Russia for years, is said to be working on plans worth billions in the middle of the war, according to “Spiegel”.
If you have big plans, it is best to contact a high-ranking addressee right away. “Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,” begins the Austrian’s letter Siegfried Wolf to his longtime good friend, Russia’s President Wladimir Putin.
A letter that is available to the German magazine “Spiegel”. It is January 2023, in the middle of the Russian war of aggression on the Ukraine,and Wolf, who has been in for years Russia is engaged as a car manufacturer has a huge project for which he needs support directly from the Kremlin.
60 billion rubles
However, he needs 60 billion rubles for this. With this sum, the equivalent of around 800 million euros, Siegfried Wolf wants to save the Russian automotive industry. He wants to have 270,000 vehicles produced in Russia every year.
A work by VW
Where exactly? Wolf has already answered this question in detail in his plans. He wants to start up two Russian car plants again, especially one in Kaluga, southwest of Moscow. It belongs to the VW group and has only been running on the back burner since the beginning of the war. A “fundamental agreement with Volkswagen’s top management,” Wolf writes to Putin, has already been reached, and the decision will be “finally approved by the Group’s supervisory board” by March at the latest.
What sounds like daydreams at first glance makes sense – at least from an economic point of view. After all, the Austrian is one of the most important figures in the German auto industry. He sits on the supervisory bodies of the German supplier Schaeffler and Porsche SE, the multi-billion dollar holding company of the Porsches and Piëchs, to which Volkswagen also belongs.
And Wolf is considered a door opener to Russia, with the best political and personal contacts. After all, he was a top manager in the company empire of the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who also acted as a major investor in Austria, and he actually has friendly contacts with Putin. Whenever the President shows up in Austria, whether on a state visit or privately, Wolf is there too.
With the VW deal that Wolf Putin proposed, things are not looking so rosy, as the “Spiegel” reports. At VW they should have had other plans for the plant in Kaluga for a long time. Behind the scenes, there is said to be a bitter tug-of-war about the business, which also involves legal means.
“No armaments”
In any case, Siegfried Wolf seems determined to further expand his position in Russia, war or not. Incidentally, Wolf sharply condemned him at the request of “Spiegel”. He is also not involved in the production of armaments, nor in transactions with personalities who are on sanctions lists. In any case, Deripaska has been on the US sanctions lists for a long time.