By John Helmer, Moscow Stealth warfare against the Russian economy may be encouraging capital outflows, but for Russians on the home front, glasses are still being raised with a growing volume of sparkling wine or champagne going down the hatch. Abrau-Durso, the only Russian winemaker listed on a public stock exchange, is also going up, […]

by John Helmer - Monday, June 2nd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Australian Government has decided not to exclude President Vladimir Putin from the summit meeting of the G-20 heads of government scheduled for Brisbane in November. The move to withdraw the entry ban, first declared on March 19, is too late to prevent the restoration of Australia’s $200 million beef export […]

by John Helmer - Monday, April 14th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow Australian meat imports to Russia have been banned by an order of the Russian veterinary and phyto-sanitary service, Rosselkhoznadzaor (RSN). The order was issued on March 31, and halts a trade which earned Australian meat exporters almost $200 million last year. The Russian action came twelve days after the Australian Foreign […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow The assets of Petro Poroshenko, frontrunner in the Ukrainian presidential election called for May 25, are facing growing pressure in Crimea and mainland Russia. If US and French Government proposals now in discussion in Brussels expand anti-Russian sanctions to strike at the offshore assets of Russian oligarchs, Poroshenko is likely to […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, March 20th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow Would you buy a used car from David Bonderman (lead image), Dmitry Shvets, and Jan Dunning if you knew they registered their businesses in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cayman Islands, and Bahamas; kept their takings out of their companies and in their pockets; and were more heavily indebted to the […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, February 20th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to pork sausage. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our profitability. If Europeans do that, it’s classical from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. If Russians do it, it’s trade war. Oleg Tyagnibok, […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 11th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow Oligarchy versus democracy is a very old game, and so are the seven deadly sins. Why exactly men like Vladimir Potanin, Mikhail Prokhorov, Alisher Usmanov, Andrei Melnichenko et al. should calculate that advertising their standard of living should help them keep it is difficult to say. Maybe their pockets are under […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, October 20th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow It is quite clear that the Russian Government objects to an international agreement to stop fishing for the Antarctic toothfish in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. What is far from clear is why. On the surface, the Russian fleet caught just 522 tonnes of the species from the Ross Sea […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, August 7th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow The report last week of an abrupt ban on kangaroo imports to Russia, issued on July 25, concluded with the statement by Rosselkhoznadzor (RSN), the government’s veterinary and phytosanitary inspectorate, that there had been no phytosanitary problem with the meat, and that with guarantees RSN will negotiate with the Australian exporter, […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, August 4th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow If you like eating river pike, apply to President Vladimir Putin who recently landed a big one (image left). If you like ocean seabass, this story is for you, especially if what your fishmonger calls Chilean Seabass is in fact toothfish; depending on how cold the waters are in which it […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, August 1st, 2013
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