New broadcast by Chris Cook with John Helmer, Victoria, B.C., Canada Click to listen    Interview starts at Minute 36:40 “Question: Is Putin’s political obituary in the western press a little premature? Answer: There’s been no conception, no baby here, no bath water.”

by Editor - Wednesday, March 29th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow Leonid Lebedev (lead image) has been ousted from the Federation Council, the Russian senate, after serving twelve years as a senator representing the Volga region of Chuvashia. This follows a Council investigation exposing earnings from offshore entities which Lebedev had failed to disclose in his official income and asset reports to […]

by Editor - Wednesday, July 1st, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Heeeeeeeeere’s Sasha, Boris, Andrei, Olga, Zahar, Ella, Sergei, Seriosha, Pavel, Natalia! That’s the top-10 of the top-100 Russian politicians auditioning for election and power, picked this week by 26 experts; paid for by the Kremlin budget; and reporting to Vyacheslav Volodin. He’s the deputy head of the President’s administration in charge […]

by Editor - Wednesday, April 29th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow When Alexander Shokhin was a junior official in the international economic department of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 1980s, it was plain he was short-sighted. That was because of the glasses he wore – the old Soviet type, super-thick. He’s come a long way since then, and so […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 7th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow All the punditry since September 8, when Alexei Navalny won 27% of the Moscow mayoral vote, with a 32% turnout, has missed three unusual poll indicators measured by the Levada Centre. The first is that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s approval rating has been in steady decline for a year, but it […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013
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