A retired fire inspector from Bird Creek, Alaska, received an unexpected gift: a brand-new Ural motorcycle, presented as a “personal gift” from Russian President Vladimir Putin, following a chance encounter with Russian state media journalists.
Mark Warren, the recipient, recounted the unusual series of events that began on August 6 while he was riding his sidecar Ural motorcycle in downtown Anchorage. Two Russian journalists approached him at an intersection, asking about his bike.
“There were two gentlemen at an intersection that stopped me, and they identified themselves as Russian journalists, and they were interested in why I had the bike,” Warren said, as reported by Alaska’s News Source. “It was purely just information about the bike, why I bought it, and about what I did to fix it up.”
Warren explained that it had become difficult and expensive to find parts for it since the war in Ukraine. The journalists filmed Warren discussing his motorcycle, a Ural model originally manufactured in Russia and now assembled in Kazakhstan since 2022. During the conversation, they asked his opinion about the upcoming U.S.-Russia summit in Anchorage.
“I just said, ‘I just hope something good comes out of it,’” Warren recalled, per Anchorage Daily News (ADN).
On August 13, one of the journalists contacted Warren, informing him that the clip had gone viral in Russia and had reached Putin. The journalist said the Russian president wanted to gift Warren a new Ural motorcycle. Initially skeptical, Warren described the offer as “bats–t crazy,” suspecting a scam.
“I said call me when it’s off base, because at this point I just felt, this is so random and so strange that I felt apprehensive about this being actually really going to happen … this doesn’t just happen. I know no one from the Russian Embassy,” he said.
After the August 15 Trump-Putin summit at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson ended without a Ukraine war ceasefire agreement, Warren received another call from a Russian official.
“He calls and says, ‘We have your bike,’” Warren said, per ADN. “‘It’s on the base, but we’re trying to figure out how to get it to you.’”
The motorcycle, a khaki green Ural Gear-Up valued at about $22,000, had reportedly arrived from Russia on Putin’s jet.
On August 16, Warren and his wife met with Russian officials at the Lakefront Hotel in Spenard, where a camera crew unveiled the motorcycle.
“This is a personal gift from the president of the Russian Federation,” an official told Warren, as captured in Russian state media footage.
Warren rode the bike briefly for the cameras and later trailered it home, still navigating customs and titling issues. Paperwork indicates the bike was manufactured on August 12 in Russia.
A document from the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the U.S. confirmed the gift, stating, “The Embassy of the Russian Federation in the United States of America on behalf of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir V. Putin, transfers as an act of giving the following property: Motorcycle ‘Gear-Up,’….”
No explanation for the gift was provided, and the embassy did not respond to inquiries from Alaska’s News Source.
Warren expressed bewilderment at the gesture.
“There is no reason why they could have — should give me a bike. I haven’t done anything for them or to them, and I don’t know anybody,” he said. “So yeah, it’s so absolutely astronomically random that it was hard for me to understand why this happens. Matter of fact, I still don’t know why.”
Despite the controversy surrounding Putin, who faces U.S. sanctions and an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes in Ukraine, Warren accepted the gift without hesitation, though he acknowledged public criticism.
“I pissed off all sorts of people,” he said. “I took it. I could have not taken it, and probably pissed off just as many people as doing that. I don’t care.”
He emphasized that he does not see himself as part of Russian propaganda, stating, “They’re getting nothing from me. Nothing.”
Russian state media described the gift as a goodwill gesture to Americans. Warren plans to sell his older Ural and ride the new one, calling it “a good bike,” per ADN.