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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with President Vladimir Zelensky has enough fingers to count that $115 billion is worth almost three times more than $41.3 billion. The first number is the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) calculation of  “external support over 2023–27 involving sizable official financing in the form of grants and concessional loans, as well as […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Russia’s warning to Poland not to send troops into the western Galician region of the Ukraine has fallen on deaf ears in Warsaw. Instead, electioneering ahead of an October national parliamentary vote has dictated different priorities for the governing party, the main opposition party, and the rising Konfederacja (“Confederation”) party. […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Officially speaking, the Russians ended the year-long Black Sea Grain Initiative by refusing to renew it on July 17. Practically, it has been doomed for weeks.  The Ukrainian attacks on the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline (June 8) and the Taman ship-loading terminal (June 2); Ukrainian efforts to use the grain carriers […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with On the battlefield the Ukraine has pioneered the Mosquito Tactic – that’s sending units of dozens of soldiers running towards Russian defence fortifications in several swarms at the same time, across a half-dozen salients up and down the line of contact. In parallel, in the air and on the sea […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In war, the losing side has several options. Fighting to the death is one of them, capitulation and surrender are another. Depending on their rank, religion, honour, and offshore bank accounts, the losers may run away or commit suicide. The Ukrainian regime, with the assistance of the North Atlantic Treaty […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with For all its public talk, NATO has agreed on a secret six-month plan for Ukraine. It’s a case of do or die by December. Either the Ukrainian forces, firing everything the NATO allies can give them — from US cluster munitions to Franco-English Storm Shadow missiles and German Leopard tanks […]

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Translated from Colonel Cassad, with afterword by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Damage control Today it’s a little funny to see the bewilderment from reports of Putin’s meeting with Prigozhin, because, they say, Putin had called Prigozhin a rebel, and then meets with him.

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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 […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with On Friday, June 30, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was asked if, after the armed mutiny of the week before, he can give guarantees that Russia is stable and will not sink into turmoil? “We are not obliged to explain anything or make assurances,” Lavrov replied. “We are acting in […]

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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, […]