They are not in crazy expansion (altough they want to sell it as they were). They are simply shifting capacity from existing bases to airports willing to give them the most discount. There will be some growth but considerably less than it was planned for this year. Most of the existing aircraft (~60% of the fleet) are still sitting idle.
Hiring local cabin crew in Russia is done 1. as no one would move there for chips, 2. to minimize paperwork issues with foreign crew, 3. required by the authorities to have the base approved (possibly a combination of all of these things).