By John Helmer, Moscow Every autumn, as regularly as trees change their colour, Alexei Kudrin (lead image), the one-time finance minister of Russia, attempts a putsch. And as regularly as leaves fall to the ground, he fails to seize the high office he thinks he deserves. Counting the number of self-advertisements he has issued, Kudrin […]

by Editor - Thursday, January 14th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash defeated a US government attempt last year to extradite him to the US for trial on corruption allegations. But now, encouraged by the US Government and by Ukrainian government officials in Kiev, a new group of US investors, led by Stephen Lynch (lead image) and the law […]

by Editor - Wednesday, January 13th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow Entitled “The Yellow Airplane”, this is a Russian painting of the late Socialist Realist epoch. The artist signs himself Kazak, and dates the work 1960. I found it in Moscow in 1998. Later it disappeared for more than a decade. But several months ago it was found, and I’ve had it […]

by Editor - Thursday, December 31st, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Eponymously, much of The Netherlands is close to or below sea level. So it’s susceptible to inundation by sea storms and heavy rains. So long as the man-made dykes hold the water back, the country can be saved. According to a well-known Dutch history lesson from the 19th century, it took […]

by Editor - Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow On November 13, Gennady Timchenko (lead image), once the oligarch controlling the greater part of Russian oil movement from well-head to market, established a new line of business. He called it Carignan, after the Mediterranean grape variety, and he put his public relations agent in charge of the company as chief […]

by Editor - Thursday, December 17th, 2015
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By Gary K. Busch, London The most frustrating aspects of the media coverage of the current efforts to suppress the forces of Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria is that there is a dearth of ‘joined-up’ thinking behind most of the analyses. There is a lot of eyewitness reporting of daily events in the countries, […]

by Editor - Thursday, December 3rd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow A generation ago, a Greek prime minister, whom the Soviet Politburo in Moscow underestimated, defeated a Turkish attack on Greek territory. That was Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou; the victory was the battle of the Aegean of March 26, 1987. Before that, no Russian had defeated a Turkish attack for more than […]

by Editor - Tuesday, November 24th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Otkritie Bank has received Rb157 billion from the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) and the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) to rescue Trust Bank from bankruptcy. It is the second largest bailout in Russian bank history for what may be the longest lasting and most expensive bank fraud by its shareholders. But […]

by Editor - Monday, November 23rd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The three Russians with the largest fortunes in California are Mikhail Lesin, Leonid Lebedev, and Mikhail Abyzov. Lesin, a former government minister and Kremlin advisor on mass media, was found dead in a Washington, DC, hotel room on November 6; his death is being investigated by the homicide squad of the […]

by Editor - Tuesday, November 17th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow If it wasn’t for a Russian, Americans wouldn’t be able to lick large lollipops. Samuel Born – it isn’t known what his original Russian name was – emigrated to the US at the end of the 19th century. There he invented an apparatus he called the Born Sucker Machine. Its function […]

by Editor - Friday, October 30th, 2015
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