- Print This Post Print This Post

by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with A newly released national poll reveals that Russian public support for the Army and for President Vladimir Putin is growing. At the same time, the proportion of Russians in favour of expanded military operations is rising at the expense of those who favour negotiations. The  outcomes for negotiations acceptable to the […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Right now the Russian Electric War campaign in the Ukraine is targeting the last operating power generation plants and the transmission lines from the European Union replacing electricity which the Ukrainians can no longer generate for themselves. Microwave and mobile  telephone towers are being struck so that the country’s cell network […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Soldiers lay down smoke on the battlefield to conceal their movements, advancing or retreating, from the troops on the other side. In the US Army manuals for warfighting with smoke, there are four kinds for the battlefield (lead image) – obscuring smoke which is aimed at blinding the enemy so […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with There’s no American anti-war movement in the Vietnam War, Syrian War or Afghan War sense of the term. That’s because there is a genuine US strategic interest at stake in fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, and further.  No comparable strategic stake existed in the earlier wars. The stake in […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In brief statements issued late last week in Moscow – their significance missed in the western press — President Vladimir Putin ordered a reality check of Russia’s war strategy. He then  answered himself by declaring the war will be over when no Ukrainian army will be left on the battlefield, […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Without the public support of any political figure in Russia, military or police unit, regional governor, or the officers of his Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his thousand rank-and-filers have agreed to return to their base camps on terms negotiated late on Saturday afternoon between Prigozhin and Alexander Lukashenko, the […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Until June 24 the combined air forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) are conducting their largest operation against Russia in the 74-year history of the alliance. The plan has been to disguise F-16 fighter jets as if they are piloted by Ukrainians, and pretend they are  launched from […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with There’s an old Russian adage about swallowing too much and trying to talk at the same time – if  you don’t want to die of gastroenteritis, keep your mouth shut.  This isn’t an option for  understanding the  past week of the war, and preparing for the next. Bear in mind […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In a month it will be three hundred and fourteen years precisely since the Swedes lost their king, their generals, their soldiers, and their empire when Tsar Peter the Great and the Russian army defeated them at the Battle of Poltava (lead image). That battle of July 8, 1709, is […]

- Print This Post Print This Post

By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The last time the Norwegians whipped themselves into a frenzy of warmaking race hatred, their minister president was Vidkun Quisling (lead image, left).   An exceptionally intelligent young military officer, he became the Norwegian General Staff’s expert on Russia at the time of the Russian Revolution. He then was posted […]