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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Under cover of its Russian S-400 air defence batteries, and ignoring US and European sanctions, Turkey is going on the offensive at sea, surrounding Cyprus, and by land, launching a weapon against the European Union against which there is no defence: a Turkish cannon firing 150,000 people at Europe’s borders […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with It appears that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his officials may have lied twice – the first time in February to deny they had discussed mediation in the Kashmir conflict with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov; and the second time this week to deny that Modi discussed US mediation […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The new Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of the Ukraine, elected on Sunday, will have an overwhelming national mandate to negotiate peace terms to end the five-year civil war. Sluha Narodu (“Servant of the People”), the party of President Volodymyr Zelensky, having won more than 43% of the votes countrywide, will now […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with A new documentary from Max van der Werff, the leading independent investigator of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 disaster, has revealed breakthrough evidence of tampering and forging of prosecution materials;  suppression of Ukrainian Air Force radar tapes;  and lying by the Dutch, Ukrainian, US and Australian governments. An attempt by […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with What can Foreign Affairs, bimonthly tribune of the Council of Foreign Affairs in New York, be referring to when it reported on the government for which “in worldview and practice, it was a conspiracy that perceived conspiracy everywhere and in everything, constantly gaslighting itself. In administration, it constituted a crusade […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with If Russian money talks,  there can be no doubt it is telling President Vladimir Putin to give Russia’s relationship with Turkey a priority comparable, almost, with China and India. The  message eliminates Greece from the Kremlin’s consideration; it also diminishes Cyprus. But does this mean there is a powerful Turkish […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The New York State Supreme Court has ruled to dismiss Leonid Lebedev’s (lead image, right) five-year case against Victor Vekselberg (first left) and Len Blavatnik (second left) for a 15% share of their £13.8 billion sale of the TNK-BP oil company to Rosneft in 2013.    Lebedev has been suing for […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Five years of civil war have convinced most Ukrainian voters to vote for peace by negotiation and compromise with the regional governments of Donetsk and Lugansk, and with Moscow. Support for continuing the war until the eastern regions capitulate has now shrunk to the western region of Ukraine around Lviv, […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The US State Department, the Republican Party Institute and Igor Kolomoisky can’t all be wrong about what the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian voters is thinking – that there is a civil war in the Ukraine which cannot be won by US arms,  money, and putsches in Kiev. The question to […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Classical music has been one of the features of Russian national identity and patriotic sentiment since the 1917 Revolution, especially among the self-professing intelligentsia of Moscow and St. Petersburg.  That meant Tchaikovsky alongside Pushkin; Shostakovich and Prokofiev beside Gorky and Sholokhov. Even during the past twenty years, the classical music […]