by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with There have been many revolutions in the technology and the geography of global cargo transportation. The Portuguese design of caravels to cross the Atlantic and Indian Oceans from the 15th century; the replacement of wind with coal-fired steam in the shipping of the British empire which followed;  and the invention of the […]

by Editor - Thursday, July 18th, 2024
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The US-led sanctions war against Russian fossil fuel exports, especially oil, has been the best thing to have happened to Sovcomflot, Russia’s leading shipping company and operator of the world’s largest oil and gas tanker fleets. Revenues are up, earnings and profits are multiplying; Sovcomflot has never had so much […]

by Editor - Sunday, September 17th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In the very long history of men and women who snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; miss the forest for the trees; and turn a molehill of profit into a mountain of loss, the US, British and German attempt to stop the tankers which carry Russian oil and gas […]

by Editor - Sunday, September 17th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with What’s the truth of how Putin rules Russia?   The longest-serving foreign correspondent in Russia has followed Putin since their first meeting in St Petersburg in November 1991. This is the Putin story which has taken more than thirty years to prepare. It’s the story which the western and Russian […]

by Editor - Monday, September 4th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with This is the story of how Vladimir Putin changed his mind on who should own Russia’s most important asset sailing the seven seas. Or did he really? This is also the story of the privatisation of Sovcomflot, the state-owned shipping company and one of the largest fleets of oil and gas […]

by Editor - Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Sovcomflot, Russia’s dominant shipping company and (next to the Chinese) the world’s most valuable energy tanker fleet, announced yesterday that in 2020 its earnings had risen almost 10%, and its profit jumped by over 18%. However, the stock market is decidedly unimpressed. On the Moscow Stock Exchange, where Sovcomflot shares have […]

by Editor - Monday, March 15th, 2021
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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The English read detective stories for the pleasure of unravelling the crime,  proving that even if there are perfect crimes, in the majority of cases the perpetrators don’t get away with them because the detectives are usually cleverer. That’s fiction. In real life,  Russian crimes are different. In the majority of […]

by Editor - Thursday, January 30th, 2020
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Sergei Frank (lead image, right) is being removed from control of Sovcomflot, the Russian state tanker company and one of the largest oil and gas transporters in the world.  Frank is the only senior Russian state official to have been judged by the British courts to be dishonest and vindictive […]

by Editor - Tuesday, September 17th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow In crowded city life, crabs – plural – meant an invasion of lice into warm body parts covered by hair. For readers who are virgins or who have had Brazilian waxing and can’t imagine running into the crabs, the illustration shows the little fellows in the hair of the head. In […]

by Editor - Monday, April 1st, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow In the US war for regime change in Russia, the Christmas dinner for the oligarchs was President Vladimir Putin’s idea in 2014 for demonstrating that he was in command of their loyalty for a price  the oligarchs were afraid to test. Late last month, the dinner was turned into an afternoon […]

by Editor - Tuesday, January 15th, 2019
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