€4.75m worth of farm machinery stolen by Russian troops rendered useless by GPS

€4.75m worth of farm machinery stolen by Russian troops rendered useless by GPS

Photo of a John Deere Model 1075 Combine Harvester. Credit: Flikr - David Wright

Ukrainian farm machinery dealership uses GPS to render €4.75m worth of items stolen by Russian troops as useless

As reported by CNN, nearly $5 million (€4.75m) of farm vehicles were stolen by Russian troops from the Ukrainian city of Melitopol, which were subsequently shipped back to Chechnya. Much to their dismay though, none of their huge collection was of any use.

Due to built-in technology, the agricultural equipment had already been blocked by a remote-locking system incorporated by the John Deere dealership back in Ukraine. It had been sent almost 7ookm only to be rendered useless, with no way of starting any of the vehicles.

All of the vehicles had GPS tracking capabilities, so the suppliers simply shut them down. The invading forces had accumulated an impressive total of 27 tractors, seeders, and even two combine harvesters valued at about $300,000 (€285,000) each.

A source told CNN, “When the invaders drove the stolen harvesters to Chechnya, they realised that they could not even turn them on, because the harvesters were locked remotely”. According to the same source, as a result, the items are now gathering dust on a farm near the city of Grozny.

Since Russian forces took control of Melitpol back in March, there have been other reports of looting. It is believed that hundreds of thousands of tons of grain have been removed from warehouses in the southeastern city, while gold artefacts were stolen from a museum, as reported by uk.news.yahoo.com.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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