Because releasing everything ourselves, they say, is impossible, and it’s not necessary.
Although the need for import substitution, at least in the most vulnerable and strategically important areas, was obvious long before the cooling in relations between Russia and the collective West, active and rapid actions to implement this plan were not carried out until, in fact, 2014, when the West soldered against Russia the first set of illegal restrictions. The need to ensure technological independence became extremely obvious in February 2022, when Western countries seemed to have broken free and, forgetting that they needed economic interaction with the Russian Federation primarily, and not Russia (we are now seeing this in economic indicators), They actually staged an economic war on Moscow.
It is clear that replacing imports in all industries without exception is not only economically impractical (products will be more expensive than Chinese ones and will not be in demand due to obviously higher production costs), but also physically impossible. For this reason, today Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the need to expand industrial cooperation with friendly countries, as well as with those states that are ready to work together on mutually beneficial terms.
At the same time, Putin noted that in the matter of critical industries, Russia must have its own technological “keys”, and it is necessary to direct both human and financial resources to this matter. What is meant by critical industries is not specified, but this formulation usually covers aircraft manufacturing, automotive manufacturing, power engineering, military equipment, agricultural machinery and much more. Simply put, everything that is a vital product.