The World War II relic motorcycle that even moved Putin: The Russian leader has gifted a new one to a veteran Alaska firefighter.

Even in the most tense moments, it's always possible to find some common ground that bridges the gap and eases the situation; and a passion for motorcycles is often a good starting point. In fact, even a man as cerebral as Vladimir Putin isn't immune to this, given his well-known passion for Ural motorcycles, the Russian motorcycles manufactured since 1941 in Irbit, Siberia, although they are currently assembled in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, due to embargo issues.

The Urals are a relic of World War II; the Soviet version of the German BMW vehicles that rode at the head of Panzer divisions in the Blitzkrieg.

In the late 1930s, the Red Army secretly purchased five BMW R71s from Sweden and delivered them to the Moscow Motorcycle Factory for reverse engineering. The result was the Ural M-72, production of which began in August 1941.

Since then, these unbreakable motorcycles have been characterized by their ability to perform in the most extreme conditions and have thousands of enthusiastic fans around the world. The leader of the Kremlin is one of them, and he has been photographed on several occasions riding one of their vehicles.

The Urals are equipped with a 745 cc, air-cooled, boxer-twin engine delivering 41 hp. Their road weight is 363 kilos, so they're not a paragon of power. However, and this is where their success lies, they can carry almost 650 kilos of weight between occupants and luggage, and have a range of close to 400 kilometers.

They also have sidecar wheel drive, making them true all-terrain beasts capable of reaching places no other motorcycle can. This has earned them the nickname "Siberian Express," and they're perfect for navigating the roads of a region as inhospitable as the Siberian tundra.

These motorcycles have been in the news recently. Days before the summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska, held in August to negotiate a possible end to hostilities in Ukraine, a team of reporters from the Russian channel Rossiya-1 traveled to Anchorage, the state's largest city—although Alaska's administrative capital is Juneau—to gather opinions from its citizens regarding the event and gauge the relatively hostile environment the Kremlin leader would encounter.

One of the interviewees was Mark Warren, a veteran firefighter living in Anchorage, who took advantage of the presence of the Russian cameras to explain—regardless of any geopolitical considerations—that the trade embargo against Russia was preventing him from finding spare parts for his old Ural motorcycle and sidecar.

Vladimir Putin's press service collected Warren's statements and forwarded them to the Kremlin leader, who, as a gesture of sympathy among Ural lovers, ordered a brand-new motorcycle be presented to the enthusiastic Russian motorcycle fan.

A couple of hours after the Russian president's plane left Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where the summit had taken place, Warren received a call from the Russian ambassador to the United States, Andrei Ledenev, explaining that he had a new, state-of-the-art Ural Gear Up motorcycle at a hotel in Anchorage and that it was "a personal gift from the president of the Russian Federation."

Logically, the old firefighter initially thought it was a joke, a scam, or even some kind of propaganda stunt at his expense... but the only condition the Russian authorities imposed on Warren for handing over the motorcycle was that he be filmed riding it around Anchorage and given a brief interview to talk about his fondness for the Urals.

And another interesting fact: when he was signing the documents to accept ownership of the motorcycle—valued at $22,000—he realized it had been manufactured on August 12, just one day before the historic summit between Putin and Trump began. The unit had been built and transported in a record 24 hours just to satisfy the Russian leader's order!

The gift, of course, was not without controversy, as there were voices criticizing Mark Warren for having accepted a gift from the Kremlin leader... although the new owner hopes that it is only seen as a gesture of sympathy from the country that produces his favorite motorcycles towards a lover of the brand.