- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Desperate measures by South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma this week sharpened the focus on what the Russian state company Rosgeologia (Rosgeo) and state banks, VTB and Gazprombank, are doing to arrange a $400 million contract for a new gasfield off the South African coast – and pipe promises of billion-dollar royalty […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Roman Abramovich (lead image) is the leading shareholder of the Russian steel, iron-ore and coal mining group called Evraz. Among Russia’s leading steel groups, it ranks second in output of crude steel; fourth in market value. It is the leader in indebtedness. By international measures, Evraz also leads its Russian peers […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Joseph Alsop (lead image, centre) and George Kennan (right) started the kind of Russia-hating in Washington which,  today, President Vladimir Putin, like the businessmen around him,  think of as a novelty that cannot last for long. Alsop was a fake news fabricator, and such a narcissist as to give the bow-ties […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow When you are a Russian oligarch with a 20-year record of settling out of court with friends, partners and investors accusing you of deceit; when you have a 7-year record of failing to sustain your share value in a genuine stock market, what do you do next? You announce to a […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow The first Dance with Bears appeared fifteen years ago.  It began as a short commentary appearing once or twice a week. The title came from Astolphe de Custine, the greatest observer of Russia ever to be obliged to conceal what he was writing inside his hat, as the Russians he was […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Rosgeologia is a small Russian state company which once held the record for drilling the deepest hole in the Earth’s crust. Its biggest discoveries of oil, gas and hard-rock minerals lie in its Soviet past. Even with current contracts from the state oil and gas companies Rosneft and Gazprom, it holds […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow The grand house domestic serial which has been one of the staples of British television is quite impossible in Russia. That’s not because pre-revolutionary Russia lacked the aristo palaces and gilded families, or that nostalgia isn’t popular on television. It’s because the gap between the upstairs family and the downstairs servants […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska (lead image, left) is famous for snatching other people’s money and legging it. The records of the High Court in London show what he did to Mikhail Chernoy (Cherney), Boris Berezovsky, and Roman Abramovich. Chernoy recovered $200 million in 2012;  click to open.  Only two people have ever taken […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

  By John Helmer, Moscow Her Majesty Raina the Queen Consort of the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan, and a Palestinian by birth, has announced that Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, is “a father, a feminist, a moral leader, a global citizen.” She was speaking at the Atlantic Council’s global citizenship awards  in New York […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

New broadcast by Chris Cook with John Helmer, Victoria, B.C., Canada Listen to the discussion of Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland’s special relationship with George Soros, Victor Pinchuk,  and the Galician liquidationist lobby which The Real News Network didn’t allow to be broadcast in the US.