The French car group said today, Monday, that Renault is selling its largest stake in the Russian car manufacturer AvtoVAZ to a Russian scientific institute. At the end of April, a Russian minister had already stated that AvtoVAZ, the company behind the Lada car brand, would be transferred to the Russian Ministry of Industry.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Renault has been in the stomach with interest in AvtoVAZ. In March, the company decided to stop all operations at a car plant in Moscow as a result of the war. In addition, sanctions made it increasingly difficult to maintain factories in Russia, which made Lada cars and Renault models work.

The French automaker, which has the largest activity in Russia among all Western automakers, is selling its approximately 68 percent stake in AvtoVAZ to the Russian Central Research and Development Institute for Automobiles and Motorcycles, called Nami. Renault has an option to buy back the stake within six years.

“Today we made a difficult but necessary decision, and we are making a responsible choice for our 45,000 employees in Russia,” CEO Luca de Meo said in a comment on the deal.

No financial details of the deal were provided. Renault, which is 15 percent owned by the French state, announced in March that it would allocate nearly 2.2 billion euros in the first half of this year to fund the withdrawal from Russia.