- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Alexei Kudrin, the finance minister in charge of the 2008 financial crash and two-times deputy prime minister, was sacked in September 2011 for overweaning ambition by President Dmitry Medvedev. No Russian politician has ever been cut to size so publicly as Medvedev did it to Kudrin. He has now been chopped […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Victor Pinchuk (lead image, upper left) is to pay Dominique Strauss-Kahn (right) to sit on the board of his Ukrainian bank, Credit Dnepr. The Kiev Post reports the appointment, announced by the bank this week, as having “ the aim of boosting corporate governance.” Strauss-Kahn has been losing large amounts of […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Moe (Moses Horwitz) of Three Stooges fame stuck his fingers so often in Curly’s (Jerome Horwitz) eyes, it was Curly the audiences loved — until he died of too much drinking and eating. No chance that if Russia’s President Vladimir Putin keeps giving French President Francois Hollande the two-fingered, two-eyed poke, […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow In May, when not a single head of a government holding a seat on the board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dared say what he thought about the criminal case against managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said: “it really is hard to believe that everything is […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Just over three months after an incident at the Sofitel Hotel, at 45 West 44th Street, New York, resulted in the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the transformation of the French presidential election race, not to mention the management of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the New York City prosecutor, Cyrus Vance […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow The disclosures by disgruntled New York law enforcers in the US press today, revealing that the accusing chamber-maid in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) affair is a career liar with thousands of recent dollars in her bank account, puts an end to the trumped-up prosecution. Whether Strauss-Kahn returns to be President of […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund (IMF) often invoked its sovereign immunity to rape Russia’s governing institutions, including the Central Bank and the Supreme Soviet, in the years of collapse following the end of the Soviet Union. Michel Camdessus, a Frenchman, was the culprit then, instructed by the principal shareholders on the Fund […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with In the history of war-fighting in Europe,  what state has waged war when its state treasurer, state banker, and state auditor were opposed to the war; aimed to cut the army off from the money required for troops and weapons; and schemed between themselves to sign terms of capitulation with the […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow How many angels can dance on the point of a pin was a trick question for medieval scholars: that’s because, theologically speaking, angels have no substance. So the correct answer is that an infinity of them can sit on the point. Alternatively, since Thomas Aquinas (d. March 7, 1274) claimed two […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

1. It looks like there’s going to be a hot autumn in Moscow? Or is that just an illusion due to very vocal electioneering and of course the media accompaniment?