It Appears That Russian Snowmobile Putin Rode Around Chukotka Has Imported Engine

The engine turned out to be the only part of the machine that worked well.

The Russian "Predator" snowmobile, on which President Vladimir Putin travelled during his visit to Chukotka, caused dissatisfaction of the press secretary of the head of state Dmitry Peskov. He said that he did not get the best impressions from driving the vehicle and complained that the only part of the car that worked well was the imported engine.

According to Peskov, the driver of the Predator who drove him from the airport said that he had to "improve" the snowmobile with a file. "Finished it myself and so on: the steering wheel works badly, the box is bad. The engine works very well, but it turned out that the engine is imported," the Kremlin speaker said.

"Predator" is produced by the "Meg West" LLC enterprise in Tobolsk district of Tyumen region. The machine costs up to 8.4 million rubles. Peskov urged the manufacturer to refine the all-terrain vehicle. "It is still necessary to somehow bring it to perfection, and they are trying to rest on their laurels. There is nothing else, so everyone buys from them. If there were more competition, they would move," he said.

As for Putin's opinion on the "Predator", Peskov said that he does not know it. At the same time, the speaker noted that the President's trip on a snowmobile along the Anadyr River was risky because "the winter road has not yet officially opened" and the thickness of the ice "did not guarantee the safe passage of any vehicle." At the same time, Peskov assured that the route had been "ten times" checked by specialists before Putin's visit.

The president visited Chukotka for the first time in a quarter of a century in power. He arrived in the region on January 10. Putin visited a greenhouse where vegetables and fruit are grown, providing 20 per cent of consumption in Anadyr. The president was given a chance to smell tomatoes and basil. Putin also met with "representatives of the public" and Governor Vladislav Kuznetsov.

Chukotka is a remote region with extreme climatic conditions that has a maritime border with the United States - across the Bering Strait with Alaska. As of 1 January 2023, 47.8 thousand people live in the subject.