by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The Ukrainian missile attacks on Sevastopol on Sunday afternoon – five US ATACMS missiles with cluster-bomb warheads – have drawn the most explicit reaction yet from Russia’s independent military bloggers, followed in four hours by an official communiqué from the Defense Ministry.  The Kremlin communiqué which followed the Defense Ministry an […]

by Editor - Sunday, June 23rd, 2024
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In the advertising Hall of Fame, three of the all-time winning slogans are “Just do it”; “Where’s the beef?”; and  “Good to the last drop”.   Three Ukrainian army soldiers and a military press officer from Kiev  have pressed all three on the Financial Times of London, and they just […]

by Editor - Friday, July 28th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Since the Ukrainian abrogation of the  Istanbul non-aggression and neutrality agreement of March 2022, which President Vladimir Putin displayed to a delegation of African leaders last Saturday, one thing has been clear. The pact to end this war will be drafted and signed by Ukrainian soldiers who have been defeated […]

by Editor - Tuesday, June 20th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with It’s  unlikely Vladimir Zelensky has read Oscar Wilde’s well-known maxim: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” But for the idea that Ukrainian officials can draw more profit, and lose fewer of their countrymen on the battlefield, by making a flurry of tactical manoeuvres […]

by Editor - Sunday, May 14th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The title of an op-ed piece by a Moscow academic, published this week in Vzglyad, bellwether of Russian security analysts, requires reading between the lines. Every Russian knows how to do this since the tsar’s chancellery posted bulletins outside the Winter Palace on how well the Russian Navy was doing […]

by Editor - Tuesday, April 18th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The sound out of Washington from the Pentagon Papers is what is known in the medical profession as a death rattle. This is what happens when an emperor makes a lethal or suicidal mistake; dies at the hands of his  praetorian guard;  and is replaced by the military candidate. In […]

by Editor - Saturday, April 15th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Marcus Kolga,  author of a new Canadian report claiming “Russian influence operations” threaten the minds of Canadian voters and “digitally illiterate” Canadian children has a Nazi grandfather problem just like Canada’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland. Freeland’s grandfather, Mikhail Chomiak from Lvov, Ukraine, was a paid spy and propagandist of […]

by Editor - Wednesday, April 12th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In observing cat-and-mouse games, the rule of thumb is — if observers of the war in the Ukraine have a thumb — to recognise the difference between the cat and the mouse. On the Ukrainian battlefield, it is now the Russian cat who is waiting for the US, NATO and […]

by Editor - Sunday, April 9th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with It was former British prime minister Harold Wilson who said in answer to a question from reporters that a week is a long time in politics. He couldn’t remember in what week he said it. A century earlier, when reporters were quicker witted than they are now, another British politician […]

by Editor - Saturday, April 8th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Pundits, journalists and public intellectuals don’t commit suicide for professional reasons. And not since Diogenes, the Cynic of Athens, have they opted to live in a barrel, keep the company of dogs, and urinate on their audience. Even among the most progressive of current journalists, it’s difficult for them not […]

by Editor - Sunday, April 2nd, 2023
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