By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Of the many questions we have been asking during this war, here’s a new one. A double-barreled one.

What will it take for the Kremlin to ensure that the outcome of Russian votes at the national parliamentary election on September 18-20 will be a majority for the ruling United Russia party against the Communist Party and other opposition forces? What will it take for the US, NATO, and the Ukraine to trigger the postponement of the election or election fraud too visible to preserve Russian voter confidence in Putin?  

Asked on June 25 if he thinks the Zelensky regime in Kiev “is winning right now”, President Donald Trump answered: “he’s doing pretty well. Look, no matter how you look at it, he’s doing pretty well. He’s holding his own at least. A lot of people dying on both sides, but I think he’s doing pretty well. Can I ask you — you have to say he’s courageous. He’s got great equipment, but he’s got great men. He’s got fighters.”  

Trump added about Putin: “you could say that Vladimir has some other things to focus on.” 

Three days later, at the first election rally of the State Duma election campaign, Putin replied: “We see and realise our problems – we also respond to them. We will absolutely ensure the security of our country and our citizens, and the inviolability of Russia’s borders for decades ahead. This is our ultimate goal. We will certainly handle all the challenges we are facing today…including terrorist attacks on our territory and our infrastructure. We will also solve any domestic development issues – primarily demographic issues, the preservation of our traditional values, and improving the quality of life and living standards in all the regions of our immense country…”   

“In September, the ninth convocation of the State Duma will be formed. In many regions, large-scale election campaigns for legislative and representative authorities will also take place, and their composition will be updated. The elections will be held within the established timeframe, in strict correspondence with the law, and all measures will be taken to ensure the safety of election commission members, candidates, observers, and electors, as well as to protect the results of the people’s vote from any attempts at external influence or manipulation. The necessary instructions in this regard have been formulated and will certainly be issued.”

“I am certain that competition will be open and honest – after all, our people’s trust in our democratic institutions constitutes the essential condition of our society’s stability and unity. The electoral process is a test of strength for our political system and an immensely important step for the country’s development, as well as the strengthening of its stability and public accord.”  

“We realise our problems” – that’s the Russian President’s public acknowledgement of the obvious. It’s not a victory exclamation mark, nor an end-of-war formula as Putin and his officials have been insisting they got from Trump at the Anchorage, Alaska, summit a year ago.  

That, declared US Secretary of State Marco Rubion on June 25, was Putin’s “proposal…but there was no agreement in Alaska.  If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end to the war.  So as I said, the President is prepared, as the United States remains prepared, to play whatever constructive role we can to bring about an enduring end to this war in Ukraine, and which has been bloody – 25 – 20,000 soldiers killed every month; 5,000 a week, most of them Russian.  So it’s been debilitating for Europe, for the – but especially for Ukraine and for Russia increasingly.”  

What Rubio meant by increasing the “debilitation” for Russia is what he called the “constructive role we can bring about”. This isn’t new – it has been US empire strategy since the November 1917 revolution; since the German invasion of June 1941; since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in August 1945; since the execution of the Rosenbergs in June 1953; since the Kiev putsch of February 2014. They weren’t pinpricks then. The Trump-Zelensky drone war against Russia in the hinterland and on the high seas isn’t pinpricks now.   

This is so far from the Putin line, promoted daily in tweeting by Putin’s negotiator with the Trump family, Kirill Dmitriev, he has been uncharacteristically struck dumb.  That’s dumb as: “If only EU governments were capable of acknowledging and correcting their mistakes, there would be much more hope for Europe”.   “Merz and Germany stand united in defeat, and that is what makes them strong — just paraphrasing Chancellor Merz or whoever writes these embarrassing soccer tweets for him.  If they cannot get soccer tweets, immigration, energy, or the economy right, what can they do?”  

In the new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid, we go beyond the punctuation marks to the facts on the battlefields and at the negotiating tables. Click to listen or view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHQiDaQ8PZU

by Editor - Tuesday, June 30th, 2026