- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow A Financial Times reporter has just published the claim that a London arbitration tribunal decided last Sunday in favour of Michael Calvey’s claims against Artem Avetisyan and Sherzod   Yusupov. Calvey, Avetisyan and Yusupov are Moscow-based shareholders in the merger of  Vostochny Bank and Uniastrum Bank. Counting their combined assets, the re-named […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Mikhail Abyzov (lead image from 2014) was arrested yesterday on charges of embezzlement and fraud, and is in prison on remand. The case against Abyzov for theft of Rb4 billion ($62 million) from regional electricity companies is the most significant criminal case against a Russian figure so far this year. This […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer. Moscow According to the rule of Soviet law, which Russians over the age of 40 believe, most forms of capitalism are a crime, especially investment banking. By the rule of modern Russian politics, if Alexei Kudrin, German Gref, and Andrei Kostin announce a man is innocent, he is bound to be guilty […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Twenty years ago, on April 25, 1999, the annual memorial service for ANZAC Day at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church of Moscow allowed the Turkish Ambassador to speak from the pulpit, in front of the altar. I walked out, and then protested to the Australian and New Zealand ambassadors – Ruth Pearce […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Alexei Kudrin (lead image) is the longest-running candidate for regime change in the Kremlin who is not in jail, or outside the country. “We need a friendly global environment,” he told  a business conference in Moscow last week. Currently chairman of the Accounting Chamber, the state auditor, Kudrin explained this is […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska has filed a lawsuit in federal US court in Washington, DC, requesting US help to save him “from… the devastating power of U.S. economic sanctions… in a manner that is inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution.” Deripaska has also accused the US Government of aiding and abetting the Russian Communist […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow “We have the right to expect,” Mikhail Gorbachev, then President of the Soviet Union, declared to James Baker, US Secretary of State, in Washington on February 10, 1990, “that you won’t just wait until the fruit falls into your basket”. Baker relaxed. By “right” he knew Gorbachev was holding out a […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow  The new rules-based order. That’s an expression invented by western politicians for their schemes of Russia warmongering, and for their media, universities and think-tanks to promote the military budgets required.   In this month’s case of Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian foreign minister  scheming to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in time to […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow O dear! O dear me! O dearie, dearie me! William Burns is the man who might have been US Secretary of State if Hillary Clinton had been elected President in November 2016. Since then he has been composing an apologia pro vita sua — a book of religious convictions describing what […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow When India, one of Russia’s largest and longest-serving allies, was attacked by Pakistan in Kashmir since mid-February, the Kremlin sent condolences, expressed hope for a “prompt settlement”, and authorized Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to offer to mediate between the ally and its enemy.  “Russia is ready to offer a negotiating platform […]