Anchorage [US], August 20 (HBTV): Russian President Vladimir Putin gifted a brand-new motorcycle to an Alaska man who went viral on Russian state media after complaining that the Ukraine war had made it more expensive to repair his Soviet-era bike, the New York Post reported.

This is the second recent incident highlighting Soviet nostalgia from the Russian side. A day before the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was spotted wearing a white sweatshirt with CCCP, the abbreviation for the USSR in Russian.

Mark Warren, a retired fire inspector from Anchorage, said he was handed the keys to a new Ural motorbike last week by Russian embassy official Andrei Ledenev, shortly after Putin’s high-profile meeting with former US President Donald Trump.

'I have to say that this is a personal gift from the President of the Russian Federation,' Ledenev told Warren in a video later broadcast on Russian state media, according to the report.

The episode began on August 9, when a Russian TV crew in Anchorage stopped Warren while he was running errands on his old Soviet-era motorcycle. After admiring the vehicle, they asked him about the Putin-Trump summit and the economic impact of the war.

Warren explained that spare parts for his bike had become difficult to find and costly due to sanctions on Russia, as the manufacturing facility was located in Ukraine. Days later, he received a call from the reporters saying the clip had gone viral in Russia and caught Putin’s attention. Initially, he dismissed the promise of a new USD 22,000 bike as a scam, calling it 'bats-t crazy.'

However, less than 24 hours after the Putin-Trump meeting, Russian embassy staff contacted him to arrange the handover. Video footage showed Warren receiving the motorcycle and taking it for a test ride. 'It’s night and day. I like my old one, but this one is obviously much better. I’m speechless, it’s amazing. Thank you very much,' Warren said.

Ural, the motorcycle manufacturer, was founded in Soviet Russia in 1941 but is now headquartered in Washington state. The company shifted production to Kazakhstan after the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the New York Post reported.

Following the Alaska meeting, Putin praised Trump’s efforts to help resolve the conflict. He said, 'We see the strive of the administration and President Trump personally to help facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict and his strive to get to the crux of the matter, to understand this history, is precious. The situation in Ukraine poses a fundamental threat to our security. Moreover, the Ukrainian nation, and I have said it multiple times, is a brotherly nation; however strange it may sound in these conditions. We have the same roots, and everything that’s happening is a tragedy for us. And a terrible wound.'

(ANI)