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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with In the rest of the world it is known as the cultural cringe. In Russia the wish to be loved by Americans is known as liberal reform. In the very first paragraph of a new book called “Collapse: the Fall of the Soviet Union”, the author, Vladislav Zubok – the name […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with On March 15 the British Government announced it is imposing a ban on exports to Russia of “high-end luxury goods”. According to the official press release, “the measures will cause maximum harm to Putin’s war machine while minimising the impact on UK businesses as G7 leaders unite to unleash a fresh […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with On June 13, for the first time since the Russian military operation began in the Ukraine, a detailed Russian intelligence assessment has been published in Moscow of Polish strategy for the future of Ukraine. This follows several weeks of brief statements by Russian security and intelligence officials claiming the government in […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The Cossacks are known for many things, but not for being Roman Catholics like the Galicians of western Ukraine around Lvov, or like the Poles around Cracow. Originally, the Cossacks swore off eating horsemeat, veal, hare, and pork. Pork is the principal meat of Lvivska (lead image, right) and Krakowska (left), the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with It was almost a century ago that a Chicago adman gave the Kellogg Company the idea of selling breakfast cereal  made of puffed rice by telling children that the rice grains cried out as the spoon scooped them  from the milk towards their mouths – SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! That’s what the […]

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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 […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The Russian regime-change theory motivating US sanctions against the Russian oligarchs is that they will trigger a palace coup in which the oligarchs will arrange a bullet for President Vladimir Putin’s head, and in return the US will give them back the keys to their yachts, mansions, and offshore bank accounts. […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Before presidential dementia became fashionable in the US, there was, Russians used to joke, Leonid Brezhnev. Once on a visit to a hunting lodge not far from Moscow, I was told by the forest ranger that he used to assist in setting up for a Brezhnev shoot. It was very late […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The Ukraine war is splitting the communist parties of Europe between those taking the US side, and those on the Russian side. In an unusual public criticism of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and of smaller communist parties in Europe which have endorsed the Greek criticism of Russia for waging an […]

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By Nikolai Storozhenko, introduced and translated by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with This week President Joseph Biden stopped at an Illinois farm to say he’s going to help the  Ukraine ship 20 million tonnes of wheat and corn out of storage into export, thereby relieving  grain shortages in the international markets and lowering bread prices around […]