Russia Holds US Humvees as Trophies - Associated Press - 05 August 2009
MOSCOW -- A top Russian general says Russia has no intention of returning U.S. HumVees that Russian soldiers seized during the brief war with Georgia a year ago.
Deputy chief of the General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn says Russia considers the four Humvees to be war trophies and thus has no obligation to give them back.
Nogovitsyn told reporters Wednesday that Russia considered the subject closed.
The U.S. vehicles were seized in western Georgia. They had been used in joint military exercises in which U.S. trainers were preparing Georgian troops for deployment in Iraq.
This is par for the course; during the Cold War Russia stole military technology - and everything else - from us like it was going out of style, then they'd make such low-end Socialist copies it was pathetic. The Lada is Fiat rip-off and the Ural motorcycle is a WWII-era BMW.
Nowadays the Russian mafia steals whatever they want in the US and other countries - cars, trucks and even motorcycles - then they load it all in shipping containers and ship them to Russia via St. Petersburg and Finland where the Politburo gives them new titles: viola, legal property. I've seen cars from the US that still have American dealership stickers tooling down the road in Eastern Europe.
As so often happens with Russian technology, we will soon see this latest advancement of their military weaponry - a Russian Tactical Vehicle identical to the HumVee - appear in the next big May Day parade and other any photo ops they can conjure up.
