by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with When is a politician’s state of being in two minds a sign of his trying to balance the views of competing constituencies or a sign of his indecisiveness, vacillation, weakness? Since the start of the Kursk invasion on August 6, the argument in Moscow over what happened before and followed in […]

by Editor - Tuesday, August 27th, 2024
No Comments »

by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with This F-16 flying above Lvov yesterday is not a Ukrainian operation against Russia, it is a NATO operation against Russia. In peacetime, this is as true as the sky is blue. But to say so in wartime is a crime – in Berlin, Ottawa, Warsaw. Wherever you are, once you  are […]

by Editor - Wednesday, July 31st, 2024
No Comments »

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 […]

by Editor - Thursday, June 6th, 2024
No Comments »

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 […]

by Editor - Wednesday, June 5th, 2024
No Comments »

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 […]

by Editor - Saturday, July 22nd, 2023
No Comments »

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 […]

by Editor - Sunday, July 9th, 2023
No Comments »

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, […]

by Editor - Saturday, June 24th, 2023
No Comments »

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 […]

by Editor - Saturday, June 24th, 2023
No Comments »

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 […]

by Editor - Saturday, June 17th, 2023
No Comments »

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 […]

by Editor - Saturday, June 10th, 2023
No Comments »