by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Heir apparent, or accounting app. In the politics of the Russian succession, Alexei Kudrin, 59 years of age, has two distinctions. The first is that he is hated by the General Staff, Igor Sechin, and a large number of Russian voters. The second is that he is loved by the US […]

by Editor - Thursday, February 6th, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister appointed by President Vladimir Putin on the evening of January 15, would be disqualified from holding office when the new eligibility rule which Putin proposed earlier that day becomes law. This is because Mishustin’s mother is reported to be of Armenian nationality, and under Armenian law […]

by Editor - Monday, February 3rd, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The first independent national opinion poll to measure Russian interpretations of President Vladimir Putin’s proposals for changing the Constitution has been reported by the Levada Centre in Moscow.   The results show a sharp decline in Russian confidence that the Constitution protects their rights and freedoms. On the meaning of Putin’s proposals […]

by Editor - Sunday, February 2nd, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The English read detective stories for the pleasure of unravelling the crime,  proving that even if there are perfect crimes, in the majority of cases the perpetrators don’t get away with them because the detectives are usually cleverer. That’s fiction. In real life,  Russian crimes are different. In the majority of […]

by Editor - Thursday, January 30th, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The Wiltshire Police and Police Commissioner Angus Macpherson have revealed new lawlessness in their investigation of the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury on March 4, 2018.

by Editor - Tuesday, January 28th, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The truth is that Consortium News trusted a Russian entity named the Strategic Culture Foundation and a Ukrainian reporter called Arina Tsukanova for a story published on February 27, 2017, about Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather Mikhail Chomiak, a propagandist and spy for the German Army who advocated and assisted in the murder […]

by Editor - Sunday, January 26th, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with President Donald Trump’s lawyers have presented a 171-page legal brief defending him from  impeachment charges in the trial which began this week in Washington. The brief mentions Russia a total of 41 times. Not counting repetitions, footnotes and references, Trump’s defence accepts as proven that Trump has defended Ukraine against Russian […]

by Editor - Wednesday, January 22nd, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with “We have overcome the situation when certain powers in the government were essentially usurped by oligarch clans,” President Vladimir Putin told the Federal Assembly last week. About  the overcoming part, his staff aren’t so sure. The week before, when asked to identify the guest list at Putin’s annual Christmas reception for […]

by Editor - Monday, January 20th, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with In September of 2018, BBC reporter Mark Urban (lead image, left) ended his book The Skripal Files with a report of the favour MI6 had arranged, so that he could visit Sergei Skripal’s house in Salisbury, and report that a souvenir of British country life which MI6 agent Pablo Miller had […]

by Editor - Sunday, January 19th, 2020
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with “From now onwards you tell the truth, and that’s it”, Robert Fisk, one of the few British journalists who do, explained recently for a television documentary that this was the credo he learned from his job.   He’s still being published in a London newspaper controlled by the Lebedev family; […]

by Editor - Monday, December 23rd, 2019
No Comments »