By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

When it comes to the role God plays in Vatican politics, inside the Holy See and outside in the warmaking capital of the US, there can never be too much ado about nothing.

You don’t have to be a believer to understand that in war and politics, God is Not Nothing.

President Donald Trump made it clear that he and God were head to head and holding hands during the Isfahan operation on the weekend, April 4-5. He —  Trump, that is —   has also been making sure that his most senior Roman Catholic officials (lead image, right), Vice President JD Vance (convert) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (birth) – both of them candidates in the running to succeed Trump – keep American Catholic voters loyal to his presidency as they were in the 2024 election.  

And so it came to pass that on January 22, a Catholic second-stringer in the Administration, Elbridge Colby, Under Secretary of War for Policy, called the Papal Nuncio in Washington, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, for a reproving lecture on papal politics. This followed the refusal of the new Pope Leo XIV to agree to Vance’s invitation to visit the US this year; and one week before Pierre turned 80 years old and signed his resignation to Rome. After a decade in Washington, the cardinal decided not to go out with a whimper, but with a bang.

The public report of what Colby had told him was leaked in the first week of April, reported here in a publication directed by a Jewish convert, almost three months after the Pentagon meeting.    “The Vatican and the White House Are on the Outs” was the headline. The identified source was “Vatican officials briefed on the meeting, who spoke with The Free Press on the condition of anonymity”. They said that Colby gave Pierre “a bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants—and that the Church had better take its side.”  

The timing of this leak followed after Trump launched his declared genocidal war against Iran; and after the Netanyahu regime closed the Holy Places in Jerusalem during the Easter celebrations.

Leo XIV then announced in his Easter Mass homily on April 5: “death is always lurking. We see it present in injustices, in partisan selfishness, in the oppression of the poor, in the lack of attention given to the most vulnerable. We see it in violence, in the wounds of the world, in the cry of pain that rises from every corner because of the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.”  

The Pope added: “Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars.”  

On the next day, April 6, in his Washington press conference, Trump replied with seventeen (17) mentions of God.

“God was watching us,” Trump said of the Isfahan operation. “Well, it was the Easter — we were in Easter territory, I guess, but God was watching us…God is good every day. And to our adversaries watching from Tehran, let this be a clear message to the United States military will go anywhere at any time to protect our own and complete the mission. We execute with precision.”  Asked by a reporter to clarify if “God supports the United States actions in this war?”, Trump replied: “I do. Because God is good. Because God is good, and God wants to see people taken care of god doesn’t like what’s happening. I don’t like what’s happening everyone says I enjoy it. I don’t enjoy this I don’t enjoy it. These two guys don’t enjoy it. You know, people say, oh boy, they’re so tough. They don’t want — they don’t like — I don’t like seeing people killed.”  

The Pope’s foreign minister, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, then reacted with a statement on April 9. “We cannot surrender to the logic of the strongest because that bends international law to its own interests. We cannot move from the force of law to the law of force.”  Parolin took shots at President Vladimir Putin, Trump and the Israelis. “Many governments have expressed indignation over attacks against Ukrainian civilians by Russian missiles and drones, imposing sanctions on the aggressors. I do not think the same has happened with the tragedy of the destruction of Gaza.”  

The Roman Curia has been under pressure from the American bishops to take a clear stance against Trump’s war and against his threats of genocide against Iran.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, speaking for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, followed the Pope’s Easter speech with one of his own, explicitly against Trump: “The threat of destroying a whole civilization and the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified. There are other ways to resolve conflict between peoples. I call on President Trump to step back from the precipice of war and negotiate a just settlement for the sake of peace and before more lives are lost.”  In the campaign to keep God on the side of Catholic voters for Trump — begun at Colby’s meeting with the Papal Nuncio in January and ending with the Pope ordering the US bishops to vote their consciences against Trump —  the Christian faction in the White House has been beaten as badly as the Jewish faction  was beaten by Iran on the battlefield of the Persian Gulf.

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by Editor - Thursday, April 9th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Professor Higgins’s question to Colonel Pickering about Eliza Doolittle in the line from the musical, My Fair Lady, (lead image) was: Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

In Moscow, where the course of the Iran war is having a profound impact on military, intelligence, Foreign Ministry, and Kremlin officials, almost nothing can be said in public. Not even the question they are asking each other downwards and sideways, not upwards: Why can’t a Russian be more like an Iranian?

The difficulty of answering is not because it is against the law to criticize the Russian Army’s performance in the present Special Military Operation (aka war), according to the interpretation of the local United Russia party commissar, his chief in the Kremlin, Alexei Gromov,  or his chief, President Vladimir Putin.

It is not because of a lack of confidence in what Putin is deciding as commander in chief. The President reveals himself in his private conversations; their substance is not a secret for a great many in a position to know.  In the telephone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban — according to the authenticated transcript of their conversation of last October 17 – Putin said he believed Trump was not at war,  not even in a special military operation,  in the Middle East – not in Gaza and Lebanon from 2023, not in Iran in June 2025. Putin also made clear then that he doesn’t think Trump is at war with Russia, and that on the Ukrainian battlefield, Trump’s “tank” is fully functional, moving “forward”, not backward.   

“Donald,” Putin told Orban,  “has a surprising ability to deal with various crises, such as the regulation of the Middle East and, most recently, the Gaza region, and I hope that there will also be a satisfactory solution to the Ukrainian-Russian conflict.”

Orban replied: “To be honest, I was also very surprised. I’ve known Donald for a long time, he’s not an ordinary person [both laugh]. His working method leaves no questions unresolved, I watch with admiration how successful he is. His business style, which is like a tornado, brings results.”

“Putin: As they say, he is moving forward like a tank. It worked for him, and we can only be happy about that. Prior to the meeting in Anchorage, the US side formulated the general principles of possible regulation, and I believe that these will be discussed again in the discussions. We have already talked about this in Anchorage, and there will probably be something to discuss in Budapest as well.”  

Putin may have been using Orban to ingratiate himself with Trump in the preliminaries for the  Budapest summit meeting, but it didn’t help and the summit failed to materialize. The reasons, Russian reasons first, American second, can be followed here  and here  and here.

What the newly disclosed transcript shows – just as other transcripts of Putin’s private conversations with US leaders reveal  – is that Putin is not aiming to fight or deter Trump; that Russia is not at war with the US (and its allies); and that Putin believes  that money can be paid in sufficiently large amounts (billions of dollars more for Trump than for his White House predecessors),   so that Russia’s national interests will be served. That conviction is one of the three“understandings” — Putin insists as do his subordinates — which were reached at the Anchorage summit meeting with Trump on August 8, 2025.

Putin’s Anchorage reference to Orban is to the “Anchorage Understandings”.  

The second of these was Putin’s belief that Trump will concede Russia’s dominance of the Ukraine in exchange for Trump’s dominance of the Americas – from Greenland through Canada to Mexico, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Exactly what (whether) Trump conceded Russian dominance of the entire NATO eastern front from Poland, the Baltic Sea, to Finland was left unclear at the time. Exactly what (whether) Putin conceded US dominance of China, North Korea, and Iran with Greater Israel was also left unclear.

The third of the “understandings” was that bribes agreed by the two presidents’ bagmen will be honoured by the presidents on receipt.

Who in Moscow shall count the sums in exchange and the interests served? That’s the Russian oligarchs.

The President’s confidant, negotiator with Trump, spokesman for the Anchorage understandings, signatory of the bribe payments,  and chief representative for the Russian oligarchs  – this is Kirill Dmitriev. He writes and publishes tweets several times each day because he wants to be heard. It is therefore his determined silence on every aspect of Trump’s attempted genocide against Iran, and his near-completed one against the Arabs of Palestine and Lebanon, which speaks loudest.  

The Iranians do not misinterpret that silence. Nor the Chinese nor the Cubans.

To understand what the Russians who count understand at present of Russian conduct of operations on the Ukrainian battlefield, the Iranian battlefield, and the Cuban battlefield, it is necessary to read between the lines of what is said in public by the officials, including Putin; and to ask questions in private of those in a position to know enough to piece the answer to the big question. Right now that’s the Doolittle Question.

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by Editor - Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Broadcast with Chris Cook on Tuesday evening, the news broke midway that President Donald Trump had withdrawn his CBOU – Crazy Bastards Obliteration Ultimatum – and agreed to a ceasefire for two weeks of negotiations with Iran.

This news followed by several hours in New York, the double veto by China and Russia of the draft UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the Strait of Hormuz. This was the attempt by the US, through Bahrain and several Arab sheikhdoms, to legalize the use of force by the US and Israel in the war they launched against Iran on February 28.  

A UNSC press release claimed the resolution aimed to “coordinate defensive efforts and deter attempts to interfere with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

This was deliberate soft-pedaling by UNSC officials.

Their description of the resolution, whose text the UNSC refuses to publish, claims the use of force proposed was “defensive”. China’s and Russia’s UN representatives criticized this as unbalanced because “it failed to capture the root causes and the full picture of the conflict in a comprehensive and balanced manner” (Fu Cong); and because it was a “fundamentally erroneous and dangerous approach” (Vasily Nebenzya). The two countries proposed that their draft resolution to come will “be concise, equitable and balanced.”  

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by Editor - Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

President Donald Trump has been defeated on the battlefield near Isfahan over the weekend. He was then defeated on the morning of Tuesday  in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in  his attempt, manipulating Bahrain, to legalize the use of force against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.

Finally, minutes short of his announced genocide deadline “before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!”  and “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”,  Trump bit his tongue on his threat: “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”  

Instead, Trump announced that as a favour to his Pakistan ally, Asim Munir, “subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution.”  

The official statement, issued in Teheran by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi,  said that Iran is “considering announcement by POTUS about acceptance of the general framework of Iran’s 10-point proposal as a basis for negotiations”. The Iranian agreement, Araghchi went on,  then preserved the new regime for the Strait “via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations.”  

Trump and his tweet supervisor, Stephen Miller, then swallowed their tongue by tweeting the text of Araghchi’s tweet.   

Exact and official wording of Iran’s 10-point proposal is not published. However, this summary published by the Tasnim News Agency, a platform of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), comes close.  The IRGC has added the interpretation: “By accepting these conditions as the basis for negotiations, Trump has retreated from his desperate threats and bluffs.”

Humiliation reversed. CIA Director John Ratcliffe and War Secretary Peter Hegseth had repeatedly declared in their April 6 press conference, celebrating the weekend pilot rescue, that the Iranians had been “embarrassed and, ultimately, humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission”, and “Iran’s military, and we know this, is embarrassed and humiliated, and they should be”.  With Benjamin Netanyahu by his side, Trump had declared last December: “Iran has been greatly reduced in power, prestige. I don’t want to use the word humiliation because, you know, they’re trying to build up again.”  

In this discussion with Rasheed Muhammad on the Red Pill Diaries, the domestic political drivers of Trump’s aggression, and also of his retreat, have been identified. The factional lineup of Vice President JD Vance, Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, White House lawyers,  pollsters, and senior military officers has proved to be stronger than the Jewish faction of Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner, Steven Witkoff,  and Netanyahu.

Click to view or listen: https://www.youtube.com/live/EG_R1PUqhLY?si=6fTElDx2TaDkFxF-

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by Editor - Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Alive or dead, US Air Force (USAF) Major Amanda Ryder has just destroyed President Donald Trump’s future.

The document bag (lead image, bottom left) and documents (right) which the Iranian Law Enforcement Force (Faraja) has disclosed and published in the last twenty-four hours,  are evidence of the weekend firefight  and destruction of at least four US aircraft  at a desert location near Isfahan, central Iran.  The cache reveals top secret operational details, location maps, time logs, local intelligence sources,  and objectives of a joint US-Israeli plan which was already in motion before the attack on Iran was launched on February 28.

President Trump’s public version of the mission is that it was to rescue the USAF colonel and weapons officer who had survived the earlier shooting-down of his F-15. Trump’s official calendar for the Saturday and Sunday, April 4-5, reveals that he remained in Washington instead of taking his usual weekend in Florida, but the record of his activities is unusually empty – until early on Sunday afternoon when Trump revealed by tweet that “we have rescued the seriously wounded, and really brave, F-15 Crew Member/Officer”;   and then next morning: “WE GOT HIM! My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History”.  

Follow where Trump was and what he said in this analysis.  

Teheran has announced that Ryder’s initial mission had been for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in and around Isfahan, to capture stocks of enriched uranium and to destroy the enrichment plant and its personnel at the same time.  

There has so far been no statement from the Pentagon or the USAF corroborating the identity, whereabouts, or condition of Ryder.

Independent open-source investigation, however, confirms that on May 9, 2014,  Amanda M. Ryder received her Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) commission as a second lieutenant in the USAF.   Her home was recorded as in Vienna, Virginia, although at the time she was studying at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  In July 2023 she was nominated for promotion to major and this was confirmed by the US Senate on July 27, 2023.  Her paygrade as a major was O4.  

The military identification card (lead image, top left) which has been displayed in Iran as Ryder’s is the standard form of the Geneva Conventions Identification Card.  The name, rank, and  paygrade displayed are standard. The lack of an issuance date at bottom, the placement of the expiration date at top, and the absence of the USAF logo differ from the standard.

Details of Ryder’s age, her family home in the Greater Washington area, and her attachment to the Air Force suggest that she may be the daughter of Major General Patrick Ryder whose long career in the USAF culminated in his posting as the Defense Department Press Secretary and Pentagon spokesman between 2022 and 2025.   There is no official confirmation of the relationship.

If the identification of Ryder and authentication of the visible documents are proved, then they have enormous political significance. The Israeli B2 visa card (lead image, top right), issued for Ryder’s entry on March 20, 2026, and expiring on June 20, reveals that Ryder was based in Israel prior to the Isfahan mission; she may have flown from Israel into Iran for the weekend operation. This confirms the close coordination in operations between the US and Israel.

It reinforces the likelihood that Ryder’s mission – along with the multiple special forces units which she was flying into the Isfahan desert landing site – was in planning from as early as March 20, her arrival date in Israel – and most likely for at least a month before then. However, if the operation’s objective was to launch a surprise attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities in and around Isfahan,  then its failure is likely to have motivated Trump’s escalation threats which have followed.

In retrospect, it now seems likely that Trump was following the operation from the White House Situation Room through most of the day and night of Saturday and on Sunday morning. The losses of Ryder’s aircraft, another C-130 transport and two (possibly three) AH-6 Little Bird helicopters, the substitution of evacuation aircraft, the combat, and the final rescue of the F-15 pilot are likely to have created enormous tension and fear of failure for Trump and his associates. They had reason to believe they were facing an even more catastrophic Iranian desert rescue mission as had been attempted by President Jimmy Carter in April 1980.

The political consequences of a repeat of Carter’s failure for Trump would have been dramatically obvious.The faction of White House officials and military officers who have been warning Trump against escalation of the war – Vice President JD Vance, Chief Staff Susan Wiles, Counsel David Warrington, pollster Tony Fabrizio – is likely to have reinforced their urging to Trump to get out of the war as quickly as possible, with a negotiation for smokescreen.

The faction in favour of escalation – Stephen Miller, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu – would have reinforced their urging to escalate, ignore the negotiations with the Iranians through the Pakistan intermediary, and prepare for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

View now or listen to this analysis of Trump as he crosses the last of his warfighting, genocide-aiming red lines.  

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by Editor - Monday, April 6th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Mohammed Javad Zarif (lead images) has grown fatter and more swollen-headed since he was replaced as Iran’s Foreign Minister in 2021, then removed as Vice President in 2025.  

In Moscow,  Zarif  is known as a Russia-hating, backstabbing liar who negotiates with deceit and whose word  is worthless. Click for more.  

For Zarif to publish last week an essay titled “How Iran Should End the War – A Deal Tehran Could Take”,   from the tribune of the money establishment in New York, the Council on Foreign Relations, is understandable in Moscow. This is because, comments a Moscow source in position to know, he is “registering his address in Teheran at the very least to tell the Americans to target their bombs and missiles elsewhere.  He hates Russians and someone is promoting him. The US has shown what they do with discussions, plans, ideas through the negotiations,” the source said. “They have demonstrated there is zero or less regard for any idea. Trump is fixated on ‘stone age’  destruction and ‘capitulation.’ If and when he does a ceasefire, it will be so he can break it. That’s a lesson the North Koreans alone seem to have learned and not anyone else. “

This is a guarded reference to the Russian look and sound-alikes in Moscow telling President Vladimir Putin to trust President Donald Trump’s “Anchorage understandings”   and to end the war on the Ukraine battlefield with schemes for US investments in exchange for Russian assets.

Just so, Zarif’s end-of-war plan includes the proposal “to further consolidate peace, Iran and the United States should initiate mutually beneficial trade, economic, and technological cooperation. Iran, for example, could invite oil companies, including interested American ones, to immediately facilitate exports to buyers. Iran, the United States, and Persian Gulf countries might all partner on projects involving energy and advanced technologies. .. Finally, Iran and the United States should announce and sign a permanent nonaggression pact. By doing so, they would commit to not use or threaten to use force against each other.”  

The Russian promoting the same combination of trust in Trump, trust in money that talks through Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner – not yet in the pages of Foreign Affairs – is Kirill Dmitriev.  He too is described by his Russian critics as too pro-American to be trusted.

The Iranian Prosecutor is reported to have issued a reprimand for Zarif.  “According to follow-up and information from informed sources, following the publication of an article in the American journal Foreign Affairs that has been determined to be contrary to national security, Mohammad Javad Zarif has been issued a reprimand. In this regard, the Prosecutor’s Office, issuing a warning addressed to political figures and those with a public platform, emphasized: ‘During this imposed war, figures and those with a platform must not express opinions or publish material contrary to national interests, national integrity, and social cohesion, nor outside the bounds of their authority.'” The Russian Security Council is highly critical of Dmitriev but he is in no danger from the state prosecutor.

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by Editor - Monday, April 6th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In the four days between April 1 and April 5, President Donald Trump made a record of the collapse of his mind into genocidal violence which none of his officials can dissuade, limit, control, if they try,  or even conceal. Not the military experts of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; not the pollsters of the White House Chief of Staff; not the lawyers of the White House Counsel; not even the spell-checkers of the Director of Communications.

Between declaring “we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong” and “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell. JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah”, Trump revealed that he thinks there can be no alternative for a state or a people or a god but submission or destruction. Theirs, or his.

In Moscow, there has been silence except for Trump’s advocate inside the Kremlin, Kirill Dmitriev. He has tweeted in support of Trump’s attacks on one of his domestic bugbears, the New York Times, and one of his foreign ones, Europe.

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by Editor - Sunday, April 5th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

By an accident of the calendar, this year’s Good Friday follows just two days after April Fools’ Day.

It is no accident that the Trump Administration has put its Arab and European allies for the war against Iran on the battlefield of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in order to legalize the use of military force (more military force) in the Strait of Hormuz.

In President Donald Trump’s April 1 speech, he announced:  “I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2, build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked. Go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy. And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It’ll just open up naturally.”

He explained what he meant by “naturally”:  “we are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing.”  

A few hours later, Trump celebrated with a video clip of a new US attack on the Karaj bridge near Teheran.  “The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow! IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!”  

The UNSC secretariat is not publishing the text of the Hormuz Strait resolution, fronted by Bahrain, currently occupying the UNSC chairmanship, in order to implement Trump’s“suggestion No. 2” – a military operation to force the Hormuz Strait open against Iranian defence.

Following Trump’s speech, French President Emmanuel Macron went public with a direct attack on Trump’s Hormuz plan. “There are those who advocate for the liberation of the Strait of Hormuz by force through a military operation, a position sometimes expressed by the United States. I say sometimes because it has varied, it is never the option we have chosen and we consider it unrealistic. It is unrealistic because it would take an inordinate amount of time and would expose anyone crossing the strait to coastal threats from the (Iranian) Revolutionary Guards, who possess significant resources, as well as ballistic missiles, (and) a host of other risks. What we say from the beginning is that this strait must be reopened because it is strategic for energy flows, fertilisers and international trade, but that it can only be done in consultation with Iran. So, first and foremost, there must be a ceasefire and a resumption of negotiations.”

Russian representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said Moscow supports Arab state engagement in end-of-war negotiations, but he implied Russia is not supporting the use of force. “We support the adoption by the UN Security Council of presidential statements regarding cooperation with the Arab League. We always take a constructive approach to these documents and view them as an integral part of cooperation between the Security Council and the League… What is also crucial amid the current escalation in the region, triggered by the US-Israeli aggression against Iran, is the calibrated stance of the Arab States.”    

By calibrated, Nebenzya meant balanced – not unbalanced against Iran.

Russia’s deputy UN representative, Anna Evstigneva, told  Chinese television on March 28 that Russia and China are together in opposing Bahraini-American proposals which are “one-sided and biased, because they put the whole blame on Iran and its strikes on Gulf countries – there are actually American military facilities there. We told them from day one that we saw the draft this way. Russia and China presented amendments to make the text balanced. But unfortunately, the penholders, as we call them in the Security Council – the authors of the text – did not take them on board. So, we had to abstain.”   

She was referring to UNSC Resolution 2817 voted on March 11.    Its language condemned Iran but didn’t propose to use force. The anti-Iran alliance, according to the resolution, “condemns any actions or threats by the Islamic Republic of Iran aimed at closing, obstructing, or otherwise interfering with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, or threatening maritime security in the Bab Al Mandab.”

Will Russia and China abstain or veto the new UNSC resolution, and what exactly do the words say and mean?

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by Editor - Thursday, April 2nd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Russian public opinion is swinging decisively in favour of Iran and hostility towards the US and Israel is growing, according to the latest nationwide opinion poll conducted by the Levada polling group of Moscow between March 18 and 26, 2026.  

Sympathy for Iran is expressed by 40% of the nationwide sample; this percentage is accelerating  with time and with state television news broadcasts reporting Iran’s fightback, its successful attacks on US bases in the Gulf states, and unprecedented strikes against Israeli targets. During the June War against Iran last year, by contrast, 29% of Russians supported Iran. This shift in public opinion has occurred among those who said they were uncertain or undecided last June.

The longer the  war continues, the stronger Russian public support for Iran is likely to become. A parallel swing of Russian support for the Palestinians of Gaza occurred following the Hamas breakout of October 7, 2023, as the Israeli destruction of Gaza over the past three years failed to stop the resistance.  

Positive sentiment towards Israel and reluctance to criticize the Israelis,  which continues to be demonstrated in public by President Vladimir Putin,  has been measured this month at just 2% of the country – one Russian in fifty. During the June War, Levada counted 3%; the difference is statistically insignificant.

No European public, no American opinion poll, and no BRICS member state shows such a low level of support for Israel as this.  

The Levada poll also reveals that,  notwithstanding their growing sympathy for the Iranian side and against the Americans and Israelis, the majority of Russians wants to stay out of the conflict.

“In the current conflict,” the Levada report, released on March 27, says, “about 40% of Russians sympathize with Iran, while only 2% speak of  their sympathies to Israel and the United States. At the same time, half of the respondents (53%) do not express sympathy for any of the parties to the conflict. Compared to last year’s events, the level of support for Iran by respondents has increased modestly. In addition, it is worth noting that, as in other conflicts in the region, a significant number of Russians remained neutral and did not support any of the parties to the conflict.”

The shift in pro-Iranian opinion among Russians is concentrated among men rather than women; those aged 55 and older; the university educated; Muscovites; and those who report relying on television for their news. The pro-Israel Russians are mostly under 25, pro-American, and are oriented to internet news sources.

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by Editor - Thursday, April 2nd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

The news broke shortly after today’s Dialogue Works podcast went to air.

This is China’s attempt to take from Iran its two trump cards in defending itself from the US, Israel and their allies:

First card — Iran’s right of self-defence and retaliation against each and every base, including radars, logistics, intelligence, operational plans, military staffs and financing, which are being used to run the war on Iran.

Second card —  counter-sanctions against the energy, other exports and food, tourism and other imports of all the states allied in the war against Iran, including India, Cyprus, UK, and the  European states. The closure of the Hormuz Strait to these war-making countries, and the imposition of a permissions regime for neutral and friendly states, are part of Iran’s defence. They are also a counter to the scheme of sanctions against Iran’s economy and asset seizures which has been kept in place by the anti-Iran alliance for forty years, and which were reinforced through the United Nations Security Council snapback mechanism in 2025.  

In camouflage for what China is doing against Iran, it has just announced its support “to strengthen the primacy of the UN.”

This is Point 5 in the “Five-Point Initiative of China and Pakistan” which was published following talks in Beijing between Wang Yi, China’s Politburo member and Foreign Minister under President Xi Jinping. Read the full text.  

Point 1 calls for “immediate cessation of hostilities”. This is the ceasefire which has been repeatedly dismissed by Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s Five-Point term sheet of March 12.  

Point 2 claims “dialogue and diplomacy is [sic] the only viable option to resolve conflicts”. After the record of negotiation by the US before the June 2025 war and now the February 28 war, this statement is false on the evidence. Also, it is a claim that is contradicted by China’s position on the future of Taiwan as non-negotiable.

Point 3 declares that “the parties to the conflict [should] stop attacking important infrastructure, including energy, desalination and power facilities, and peaceful nuclear infrastructure, such as nuclear power plants.” This is China’s alibi for Israel to retain its Dimona and Sdot Mikha   facilities for enriching uranium for bomb and missile warheads aimed at Iran; and for Iran to disarm itself in the face of the global alliance committed to regime change in Teheran. By omission, China has now accepted that assassination of Iran’s leaders, scientists and military commanders by the US and Israel, aided and endorsed by the Arab sheikhs, should be accepted by Iran in the peace talks to follow – without the penalties and reparations declared in Khamenei’s Five Points.

Point 4 of the Beijing paper is headed “security of shipping lanes”. Drafted by Wang, this is designed to open the Strait of Hormuz to the financial profit of all states, starting with China, but with the exception of Iran. There is no mention of the closure, let alone opening,   of all the world’s seas and straits to Iran’s shipping.

“The Chinese have an annoying habit of believing everyone else is an idiot,” responds a Moscow source in a position to know.

He interprets Wang’s motive — and behind him President Xi — is to secure short-term oil and gas supplies at lower cost;  and in the medium term, ahead of the rescheduled talks with President Donald Trump in China in mid-May, to reduce the escalation of the US war plan against China. “I’m also beginning to suspect that Xi’s purges of the military have a lot less to do with the corruption that’s been announced  than with repression of those unhappy with the comfortable elites around him [Xi]  selling out to the US.”

The source also points to Wang’s statement of March 8, declaring that China is “a sincere friend and strategic partner” — not to Iran under attack but to all “Middle Eastern countries” including the Arab states and Israel. “This is a war that should not have happened…Wilful use of force does not prove one’s strength.”   By omitting to identify the US, Israel and their allies in the attacks commencing on February 28, Wang, according to the interpretation in Moscow, is sacrificing Iran for Xi’s and Wang’s calculation of their own advantage.

Since last December senior Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Kremlin national security advisor Yury Ushakov, have been expressing doubt in the “sincerity” of the Xi-Wang friends.    

The suspicion in Moscow is that China is betraying its commitments to Iran under their 2021 agreement  – without going as far in the betrayal as the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s explicit and secret support for the US and Israel’s war. This means that two of the foundation states of BRICS have defaulted on the collective security the organization has promised.

That leaves Russia. Listen or view the hour-long discussion with Nima Alkhorshid, broadcast at 7 in the US morning, 2 in the Moscow afternoon.  

(more…)

by Editor - Tuesday, March 31st, 2026
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