Of the Red Army’s 665,000 vehicles in 1945, 427,000 were American-built, including 51,000 jeeps. The United States provided half the Red Army’s boots—loss of livestock made leather scarce—almost 2,000 railway locomotives, 15,000 aircraft, 247,000 telephones and nearly 4 million tyres. “Our army suddenly found itself on wheels—and what wheels!” said Anastas Mikoyan with a generosity uncharacteristic of Stalin’s ministers. “When we started to receive American canned beef, fat, powdered eggs and other foodstuffs, this was worth a lot of extra calories.” Mikoyan believed that Lend-Lease supplies
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