- Sanctions against Russia had made it difficult to this motorcycle enthusiast to maintain his ride.
- Russian journalists spotted him riding, sparking viral attention across Russian media outlets.
- At the request of Vladimir Putin, Russia flew over a new Ural motorcycle and sidecar to Alaska.
For Alaskan resident Mark Warren, a casual trip to Anchorage to run errands on his Russian-made Ural motorcycle led to him going viral in Russia and being randomly gifted a new bike from none other than President Vladimir Putin. It’s one of the stranger stories to come out of Putin’s historic meeting with US President Donald Trump last week, which many had hoped would lead to a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
While recently speaking with the media, Warren says that on August 7, he was flagged down by two men as he was riding his motorcycle. Those men turned out to be Russian journalists, who were stunned to see the American riding a motorbike from their homeland. They got talking, and Warren told them it had become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain the bike because of sanctions placed against Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
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The story quickly went viral in Russia, and on August 13, one of the journalists called Warren, informing him that the story had even caught the eye of Vladimir Putin and that he wanted to gift him a new Ural motorcycle and sidecar, valued at roughly $22,000.
The Alaskan first thought it was a scam, but after Putin and Trump’s meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, he received a call from a Russian official stating they had his new bike and were in the process of working out how to get it to him. He and his wife were later invited to the Lakefront Hotel in Spenard, where the new Ural was handed over. Unsurprisingly, Russian state media was there to show Warren picking up the keys to his new bike.
The Russian VIP Treatment
According to Anchorage Daily News, the bike was flown over on the same jet as Vladimir Putin.
“There is no reason why they could have — should give me a bike,” Warren told Alaska News Source after the handover. “I haven’t done anything for them or to them, and I don’t know anybody. So yeah, it’s so absolutely astronomically random that it was hard for me to understand why this happens.”
While the gift could be viewed as generous, the Russian government quite clearly views it as a new piece of propaganda, and by getting state-sponsored media to cover the story, it is hoping to get some good publicity out of it.
Lead image News Center Maine
