WHOOPS: Russians plunder $5M farm vehicles from Ukraine — to find they’ve been remotely disabled.

The contact said the process began with the seizure of two combine harvesters, a tractor and a seeder. Over the next few weeks, everything else was removed: in all 27 pieces of farm machinery. One of the flat-bed trucks used, and caught on camera, had a white “Z” painted on it and appeared to be a military truck.

The contact said there were rival groups of Russian troops: some would come in the morning and some in the evening.

Some of the machinery was taken to a nearby village, but some of it embarked on a long overland journey to Chechnya more than 700 miles away. The sophistication of the machinery, which are equipped with GPS, meant that its travel could be tracked. It was last tracked to the village of Zakhan Yurt in Chechnya.

The equipment ferried to Chechnya, which included combine harvesters — can also be controlled remotely. “When the invaders drove the stolen harvesters to Chechnya, they realized that they could not even turn them on, because the harvesters were locked remotely,” the contact said.

Tibor’s Tractor remains eternally loyal, however:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqZGBawsg8k

Flashback: Vox “journalist” attempts to dunk on Trump; discovers the hard way that farm tractors can connect to the Internet.