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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The Poles have always had a serious problem with their neighbours.   They have the Germans on their western flank, the Russians on their eastern flank, and inside their borders there used to be the Jews, but now there are the Ukrainians. In September 1939 there were about 3.3 million Polish […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with When it comes to bulldogs fighting under a rug Winston Churchill thought they were Russians. Little did he know about Canadians in Ottawa. The chief dogs in this fight are Trevor Cadieu and Chrystia Freeland (lead image, right).  Cadieu is a lieutenant general who specialises in planning armoured operations against the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The action the Lithuanian government implemented over the weekend to stop Russian trains carrying sanctioned cargos into Kaliningrad is regarded in Moscow as a long anticipated move, prompted among Lithuanian officials by the British government. The initial Lithuanian embargo action has been followed by a second one this week extending the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with In the rest of the world it is known as the cultural cringe. In Russia the wish to be loved by Americans is known as liberal reform. In the very first paragraph of a new book called “Collapse: the Fall of the Soviet Union”, the author, Vladislav Zubok – the name […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with On March 15 the British Government announced it is imposing a ban on exports to Russia of “high-end luxury goods”. According to the official press release, “the measures will cause maximum harm to Putin’s war machine while minimising the impact on UK businesses as G7 leaders unite to unleash a fresh […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with On June 13, for the first time since the Russian military operation began in the Ukraine, a detailed Russian intelligence assessment has been published in Moscow of Polish strategy for the future of Ukraine. This follows several weeks of brief statements by Russian security and intelligence officials claiming the government in […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The Cossacks are known for many things, but not for being Roman Catholics like the Galicians of western Ukraine around Lvov, or like the Poles around Cracow. Originally, the Cossacks swore off eating horsemeat, veal, hare, and pork. Pork is the principal meat of Lvivska (lead image, right) and Krakowska (left), the […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with A new presidential decree issued yesterday by the Kremlin ends the special measures for foreign currency and capital control issued since the start of the special military operation in the Ukraine on February 24.   Instead, a special commission of government officials and the board of directors of the Russian Central […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with There ought to be a law, or at least a sanction –  tenure cancelled, travel visa blocked – for American experts on Russia who claim to know from their reading of other American experts on Russia why Russia does things, and what will happen next. Thane Gustafson, a Georgetown University professor […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with It was almost a century ago that a Chicago adman gave the Kellogg Company the idea of selling breakfast cereal  made of puffed rice by telling children that the rice grains cried out as the spoon scooped them  from the milk towards their mouths – SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! That’s what the […]