By John Helmer, Moscow

As empires go into terminal decline, their generals go, too. Enroute, they become egomaniacs.

The pensions for retired military madmen are modest, so the generals run short of cash. The source of money which financed General Sir Richard Shirreff (lead image, left) to produce a book claiming Russia is about to launch a war against Europe, sink a British aircraft carrier, shoot down several US Air Force F-16s and kill 300 American troops at a Latvian airbase, is not disclosed by him, nor by his publisher and publicity agent, Hodder & Stoughton.

They confirm that Shirreff’s book was issued in a single hardcover edition and a single paperback five months ago, on May 19. They won’t say what market sales the book has had since then except to claim “it has sold extremely well”. They deny that a large consignment of books was purchased in advance by a NATO-allied entity. “This was an absolutely standard publishing agreement with the author . We never divulge our arrangements with our authors which I am sure you will understand are confidential business arrangements. In this case, I can confirm that there was no sponsorship arrangement and no arrangement with any third party to guarantee or purchase any number of books or indeed to cover any of the costs associated with writing or publishing the book.”

In Shirreff’s 436-page war, the US, UK and NATO defeat Russia by an Anglo-American commando and missile attack on a battery of Iskander nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad. That in turn triggers a Kremlin putsch that ends with the death of President Vladimir Putin in a helicopter crash. His successor, “even more of a hardline nationalist”, according to Shirreff, is forced “to return the Baltics to get Kaliningrad and their missiles back”.

There is also another ending. The British boy commando falls for the Latvian girl commando – “a couple of inches short of six foot, long ash-blonde hair, high cheekbones and radiating fitness”, with “a degree in English Literature at Durham” and a two-year stint at Goldman Sachs. Lovable as she is, she prefers Latvia, so the commando returns home to a British girl from GCHQ, the intelligence centre. Her legs, hair and cheekbones aren’t reported, though they must have been alluring because in the book’s penultimate paragraph, the soldier “realised how much he had been looking forward to seeing [her] again. And how much he was enjoying being with her now.”

“I know he has got a book to sell, and I’ve no doubt that he has got a large mortgage to pay,” said Philip Hammond, the British Defence Secretary who saw Shirreff into early retirement. “He was a senior Nato commander and this is quite irresponsible language…I don’t think there’s anybody serious around who thinks the kind of scenario he is postulating is remotely likely.”

Since the disclosure last week that the Pentagon paid $540 million to the London public relations firm Bell Pottinger to produce fake press materials and propaganda to justify the US military occupation of Iraq, the involvement of the firm controlled by Lord Timothy Bell in propaganda operations against Russian targets is suspected as much in London as in Moscow. Karen Geary, Shirreff’s publicist in London, said that reports suggesting Shirreff was paid to compose propaganda “are completely wrong”.
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by Editor - Wednesday, October 5th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow

You don’t need to be an expert in ground-to-air warfare, radar, missile ordnance, or forensic criminology to understand the three fundamental requirements for prosecuting people for crimes. The first is proof of intention to do what happened. The second is proof of what could not have happened amounts to proof that it didn’t happen. The third is proof beyond reasonable doubt.

These are not, repeat not, the principles of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), a team of police, prosecutors, and spies from The Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Belgium, and Australia. They have committed themselves to proving that a chain of Russian military command intended to shoot down and was criminally responsible for the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, and for the deaths of all 298 people on board. The JIT case for Russian culpability hinges on five elements occurring in sequence – that a BUK missile was launched to the east of the aircraft, and approached it head-on, before exploding on the port (left) side of the cockpit.

Pause, rewind, then reread slowly in order to identify the elements of intention, causation, and culpability: (1) the BUK missile was aimed with a target acquisition radar by operators inside a BUK vehicle at a target flying in the sky and ordered to fire; (2) they fired from their vehicle parked on the ground facing east towards the aircraft’s approach; (3) the missile flew west and upwards to a height of 10,060 metres; (4) the warhead detonated; (5) the blast and the shrapnel tore the cockpit from the main fuselage; destroyed one of the aircraft engines; and caused the aircraft to catch fire, fall to the ground in pieces, and kill everyone.

On Wednesday afternoon, in the small Dutch town of Nieuwegein, two Dutchmen, one a prosecutor, one a policeman, claimed they have proof that this is what happened. For details of the proof they provided the world’s press, read this. Later the same day, in Moscow, a presentation by two Russians from the Almaz-Antei missile group, one a missile ordnance expert, the other a radar expert, presented their proof of what could not have happened. Click to watch.

The enemies of Russia accept the Dutch proof and ignore the Russian proof. As Wilbert Paulissen, the Dutch policeman, claimed during the JIT briefing, “the absence of evidence does not prove [the BUK missile] was not there.”

Paulissen may be right. To prove he’s right all he has to do is to fill in the gap between the JIT version of what happened and the Russian version of what could not have happened by answering these questions. To convince a court and jury, Paulissen’s answers to these questions must be beyond reasonable doubt.
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by Editor - Thursday, September 29th, 2016
Comments Off on FOUR MH17 QUESTIONS — THE ANSWERS TO WHICH PROVE THE DUTCH POLICE, UKRAINIAN SECRET SERVICE, AND US GOVERNMENT ARE FAKING THE EVIDENCE OF THE MH17 SHOOTDOWN

By John Helmer, Moscow

At a press conference of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in The Netherlands today, police, prosecutors and intelligence agents from The Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine have revealed that they have found evidence from a freshly identified Ukrainian “mobile radar”, from secret Ukrainian air traffic controller tapes, and from secret US satellite imagery on the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.

The conclusion reported by JIT is that a BUK missile caused the destruction of the aircraft; that it was brought into Ukraine from Russia and removed to Russia after launch; that it was fired from a patch of farmland near Snizhne, east of the approaching MH17; and that “one hundred persons can be linked” to the movement and operation of the BUK system. The JIT also announced that no identifications of these people have been made, and that at present there are no “official suspects” .

“We need a clear impression of the chain of command”, declared Fred Westerbeke, the principal Dutch member of the investigation and JIT spokesman. “We appeal for cooperative witnesses”, he said, adding “I can’t tell you how long this investigation will take.” According to the JIT presentation from Westerbeke and a Dutch police officer, Wilbert Paulissen , further investigation is expected to last until at least January 2018.

Westerbeke claimed his group, currently numbering “nearly one hundred”, is continuing to prepare “legal and convincing evidence meeting a very high standard”.

Lawyers and analysts observing the presentation have expressed doubt that the secret Ukrainian and American government evidence can be admissible in court. On questioning by a sceptical Dutch journalist, Westerbeke acknowledged that all the telephone intercepts and wiretaps reported as evidence of Russian involvement in the reported missile operation originated from the Ukrainian secret service. Evidence of the missile movement, ground launch, and smoke trail from social media, photographs and videotapes, and purported witnesses presented at today’s JIT session have all appeared publicly before; much of it already discredited as fakes.
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by Editor - Wednesday, September 28th, 2016
Comments Off on FLASHLIGHT FROM MH-17 INVESTIGATION — DUTCH, AUSTRALIAN AND UKRAINIAN POLICE ANNOUNCE END OF TUNNEL; RUSSIAN GENERALS ANNOUNCE TUNNEL VISION

By Alexander Zaitchik and Mark Ames, Moscow
November 30, 2007

“A Victory for Russian Democracy”
—Title of a New York Times editorial, days after the ODIHR-approved 1996 presidential election

“Exit, Russian Democracy”
—Title of a New York Times editorial, days before the ODIHR-boycotted 2007 Duma elections

When Russia told the OSCE that their election monitoring mission would be severely limited last month, it seemed as though Putin had fired an authoritarian shot out of the blue, baring his inner Stalinist once and for all. The West reacted as if the OSCE was the crucifix of democracy, and Putin’s rejection of that crucifix was evil rejecting good.

Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Another way is that the recent Russia-OSCE door-slamming episode is the inevitable outcome of years of cynical Western manipulation of an organization that once held enormous promise and impeccable credentials, but is now with good reason considered a propaganda tool for the West.

If that last sentence sounds like the paranoid rant of a Putin-era silovik revanchist, then think again. It’s the view held by none other than the man who headed the OSCE’s 1996 election mission in Russia, Michael Meadowcroft.

“The West let Russia down, and it’s a shame,” said Meadowcroft, a former British MP and veteran of 48 election-monitoring missions to 35 countries.

In a recent telephone interview with The eXile, Meadowcroft explained how he was pressured by OSCE and EU authorities to ignore serious irregularities in Boris Yeltsin’s heavily manipulated 1996 election victory, and how EU officials suppressed a report about the Russian media’s near-total subservience to pro-Yeltsin forces.

“Up to the last minute I was being pressured by [the OSCE higher-ups in] Warsaw to change what I wanted to say,” said Meadowcroft. “In terms of what the OSCE was prepared to say publicly about the election, they were very opposed to any suggestion that the election had been manipulated.”

In fact, he says, the OSCE and the West had made its mind up about how wonderfully free and fair Boris Yeltsin’s election was before voting even started.
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by Editor - Sunday, September 25th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow

It was a relatively bright day, November 21, 1920, when Vladimir Lenin, having won the civil war and driven off the American, British, French, Canadian and Australian expeditionary forces, announced: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country, since industry cannot be developed without electrification.”

It was a cloudy day in Moscow last Sunday, September 18, when Russian voters, suffering the effects of two and a half years of American, British, French, Canadian and Australian war, demonstrated what they think of Anatoly Chubais’s electrification. Russian politics — those who voted and those who stayed at home indicated, both — is Putin power plus electrification at a state-controlled price, since the country cannot develop if the Chubaisites pocket the profit and leave ruinous debts behind for the taxpayer to cover.
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by Editor - Thursday, September 22nd, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow

A multi-million dollar case of corruption and money-laundering, involving the fugitive Russian businessman Leonid Lebedev and his lawyer, now the President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades (lead image), moved to New York this week, as Anastasiades landed for a week of meetings at United Nations headquarters; followed by Lebedev’s jet a few hours later.

Disclosures in a Manhattan court last week confirmed for the first time Lebedev’s emails to and from Anastasiades and his law partner, Theofanis Philippou. Over Lebedev’s opposition to revealing what these records say, the New York court is now set to request the Attorney-General of Cyprus, Judge Costas Clerides, and the Justice Minister, Ionas Nicolaou, to subpoena documents, bank accounts, and other records, plus communications to and from the businesses Anastasiades and Philippou have been supervising in Cyprus on Lebedev’s behalf since 2012; possibly earlier when Lebedev became a Cyprus citizen secretly, with help from Anastasiades and Philippou. That was in March 2011; they then began moving large amounts of cash from Russia through Cyprus companies and trusts into three New York banks.

Attorney-General Clerides has been investigating Lebedev’s business in Cyprus for months. He had Philippou under investigation earlier for allegedly corrupt involvement in the sale of the state airline, Cyprus Airways. Anastasiades was a defence witness in a criminal court prosecution by Clerides of a former deputy attorney-general on corruption charges. The trial will conclude in Nicosia next week. “I have done my duty towards the justice system in my country,” Anastasiades said when he appeared to testify in June. Philippou has been charged with no wrongdoing. he refuses to answer press questions about the Lebedev case.

Russian prosecutors are also pursuing investigations of Lebedev’s electricity company business in two regional courts, Tver and Yaroslavl. Lebedev was granted protection from Russian prosecution by the US Government in 2014, after he resigned his Russian senate seat and left the country. He now lives in Los Angeles.

What Lebedev is offering to reveal to US Government officials he is refusing to disclose in the New York Supreme Court. There he has been suing for $2 billion in compensation for shares in the Russian oil company TNK which he claims he sold to Victor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik, but was never paid for. Last December Judge Saliann Scarpulla dismissed Lebedev’s fraud allegations, leaving a single contract claim hanging on a single piece of evidence – did Lebedev control Coral Petroleum, the company which received Vekselbereg’s and Blavatnik’s payment for the oil company shares?

The President of Cyprus knows the answer. He must now try to keep Lebedev’s secret from the Cyprus Attorney-General.
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by Editor - Tuesday, September 20th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow

If you want to understand Russian politics, watch the tomato talk to power.

President Vladimir Putin rolled out the red carpet for Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, last month, and it was announced that the Russian ban on Turkish food imports will soon be dropped. But the Russian tomato trade doesn’t agree. It says Turkish tomatoes will remain excluded from the Russian market.
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by Editor - Thursday, September 15th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The Russian state shipping company Sovcomflot and its chief executive Sergei Frank (lead image, right) have been ordered to pay “tens of millions of dollars” in punitive compensation to exiled shipowner, Yury Nikitin (left). A UK High Court judgement late last month concluded a record 11-year litigation by condemning Frank’s dishonesty in fabricating evidence in the case, and freezing hundreds of millions of dollars of Nikitin’s funds. Frank and his Sovcomflot subordinates were judged to have been more culpable than the court’s findings that Nikitin had been dishonest in paying bribes to win new vessel and tanker charter business.

The High Court judgement, which has gone almost unreported in Moscow, was issued on August 26. The 40-page ruling by Justice Sir Stephen Males flatly contradicts international bond and share sale prospectuses which Sovcomflot has been circulating in international markets. The judgement may blackball Frank as unfit to manage or direct an internationally listed company in future.

“The potentially devastating consequences of a freezing order have often been recognised,” ruled Justice Males. “It is only just that those who obtain such orders to which they are not entitled, a fortiori when they are guilty of serious failures to disclose material facts and have pursued claims described by the trial judge as ‘obviously unsustainable’, should be ordered to provide appropriate compensation for losses suffered.”

“If the Kremlin still hopes to privatize Sovcomflot with the sale of shares to international investors,” commented a London investment banker, “it will have to replace Frank, and purge the company and the board of everyone responsible for the London case.”
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by Editor - Wednesday, September 14th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow

When Hillary Clinton (lead, left) was US Secretary of State in 2009, she proved she could lie to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel; keep secret her hostility towards Russia even in her secret staff emails; and take money in her back pocket for an $8 billion deal between the US, Germany and Russia recommended by her subordinates. The record, recently revealed in US investigations of Clinton’s emails and donations to the Clinton Foundation, shows why the Kremlin assessment of Clinton is hostile and blunt – Clinton invites and takes bribes, but can’t be relied on to keep her bargains.
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by Editor - Tuesday, September 13th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow

by Editor - Sunday, September 11th, 2016
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