by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with June 12 marks the anniversary of Boris Yeltsin’s election as President of Russia. It is no moment for celebration. The government which he led successfully over the attempted putsch of last August and through the disintegration of the Soviet Union now lacks credible authority in the Russian federation and among its […]

by Editor - Tuesday, June 11th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte (right, centre) was the first leader of a NATO state to try to send his soldiers on to the Ukrainian battlefield to fight Russian forces directly.  That was in July 2014, in the aftermath of the Ukrainian shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. That Rutte […]

by Editor - Thursday, May 30th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In war, exaggeration is a killer. In the media, exaggeration is a bestseller. In the current war there is a dearth of military and political analysts who for truth or money will tell the difference. Instead, when the mentality of the war fighters is a combination of racial superiority and spetsnaz derring-do, […]

by Editor - Wednesday, May 29th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with This year 2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of my first two books in New York in 1974. To contemplate what to scribble next, I’m taking a few days of May break.

by Editor - Monday, May 6th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with A senior Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) officer, who is the Assistant Chief of Staff at the NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), faces court martial, “dismissal with disgrace”, and loss of his military pension for having disagreed with Canadian, American, and British military planners of  Ukrainian battlefield operations against Russia. His […]

by Editor - Thursday, May 2nd, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Following yesterday’s publication  on the work of Lawrence Freedman (lead image, left*), he was sent a request that “in the event you detect error of fact or interpretation in this piece, please inform me at once so that the appropriate remedy may be taken”. A reply signed by Freedman has been […]

by Editor - Thursday, May 2nd, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The kings of Europe used to pay clever men to pretend to be fools in order to make jokes to amuse the monarch and his court. They were called jesters. A man who pretends to be cleverer than he is, and who tells jokes in order to fool others into making […]

by Editor - Wednesday, May 1st, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Every spring, when it’s certain no more snow will fall on Moscow, it helps to remember what the celebration stands for, and look forward with hope.   Hope doesn’t come cheaply. In English and many other languages including Latin, May Day meant the return of fecundity, flowers, food harvests, and so hopefulness […]

by Editor - Sunday, April 28th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The first Dance with Bears appeared twenty-two 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 […]

by Editor - Sunday, April 21st, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Ice cream is ancient enough to have been demanded by at least three well-known emperors – Alexander the Great of Greece, Nero of Rome, and Charles I of England, all of them ill-fated. Ice cream, as we know it, doesn’t become easy to eat until it ceased to be plutocratic.  Refrigeration […]

by Editor - Sunday, April 7th, 2024
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