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By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with [2]
Nothing succeeds so consistently and so badly at changing the hearts, minds, and votes of people than bombing them.
It’s a conclusion that the 316 volumes of the US Strategic Bombing Survey of 1944-45 [3] came to about the enemies of that time, the Germans and Japanese, very reluctantly [4].
In announcing [5] the victory of the United Russia party (Единая Россия, ER) after the weekend election, Dmitry Medvedev (lead image, centre*), former president, deputy head of the Security Council, and ER party chairman, made the point emphatically. “Over the past few days the enemy has made titanic, colossal efforts to undermine the outcome of the election. But as has been rightly said, this has only served to unite the voters, to unite our people. This, I suppose, is the most important outcome of the election.”
This has been the lesson since the Italian empire launched the first air bombing against the Libyans in 1911, followed by the French empire in Syria and Morocco, the British empire in India, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and then against the Russia (with poison gas munitions) in 1919 [6]. Now it’s the US empire against Iran and Israel against Gaza.
But in the latest versions, this isn’t strategic bombing at all – not the application of air weapons for the deterrence, destruction and defeat of the warfighting capacities of the target state. Instead, it’s exterminism – the destruction of the people on the other side by decapitation and genocide.
This exterminism has always been the tacit objective of bombing by the empires aiming to take territory and its resources, eliminate the people on the ground and in the way. Imperial bombers like Winston Churchill, Arthur Harris, his chief of Bomber Command, and Curtis LeMay, the US Strategic Air Command chief, were explicit in their advocacy of exterminism [7].
The failure of exterminism in the mouths and warfighting operations of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, their western allies, financiers and armourers, isn’t readily admitted now. In time it will be. But Trump’s miscalculation over this weekend – implemented in Kiev by the Anglo-American staffs advising and assisting the record swarms of drones attacking Russia during the three-day election – this is too obvious to miss.
Trump missed it. He spent [8] Friday and Sunday striking golf balls. He also had a telephone conversation [9]with Vladimir Zelensky on Sunday: “An important conversation, and we got through a lot,” Zelensky announced. “We agreed to meet in New York, and this meeting could change a lot. There is diplomatic momentum.” Trump’s approval of the escalation of attacks on Russian targets is implied in this Washington report [10].
Trump also tweeted [11] that he has redesigned his “Triumphal Arch” into a firing platform “to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage. There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World. Out of the 59 top cities and Capitals, Washington, D.C., IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT DOES NOT HAVE A TRIUMPHAL ARCH, but it will now and, by far, the greatest of them all!”
This is also what the US and NATO are redesigning for the Ukraine – exterminism reversed, a firing platform like nowhere in the world, a permanent warfighter against Russia without a people.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, there were US and NATO-guided 1,951 drone and 8 cruise missile attacks on Russia September 19-20, and were shot down; no count of the additional number of drones striking targets has been reported [12]. This is a one-night record for Churchill-Harris-LeMay type warfighting operations against Russia. Roughly one-quarter of the drones were fired at Moscow.
The Russian polling results realised — after the count of two-thirds of the ballots — indicate that voter turnout has risen to 56.7%; this is well ahead of the pre-election pollster forecasts of between 51% and 53%. It is a 10% increase over the pre-war State Duma election in 2021; a 20% increase over voter turnout in the Duma election of 2016. United Russia (ER) has increased its proportional vote to 57.7%, up 16% on the last election. The leading opposition party, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), has fallen by 27% to 13.8%. The aggregate vote of the four main opposition parties is 35.8%; this compares with 39.2% in 2021.
The extent of voter opposition to Kremlin domestic policies has not diminished. But under enemy attack, the Russian voter has endorsed [13] the priority of military escalation. “In order to disrupt the democratic expression of will by the citizens of the Russian Federation in the elections to the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Kiev regime attempted a large‑scale attack on the territory of the Russian Federation on September 19 and 20 of this year, using UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle] and Flamingo cruise missiles…The attempt at a large‑scale attack on Moscow failed. The enemy did not achieve its goals. In response to attacks by the Kiev regime on civilian facilities on Russian territory, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will continue and intensify strikes with precision-guided weapons against military facilities in Kiev.”
COMPARING RESULTS OF THE 2026 STATE DUMA ELECTION
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[15][*] As the lead photograph shows, ER chairman Medvedev was accompanied on stage by Sergei Lavrov. The foreign minister since 2004, now aged 76, Lavrov has shown signs of wanting to retire. This would follow if President Putin decides on a government ministry reshuffle; he reshuffled Defense Ministry and army commands in August [17]. In 2021 Lavrov was also at the head of the ER ticket but after the election he resigned his mandate to remain at the Foreign Ministry. A Moscow source in a position to know comments: “I think he will stay on. And why should he go when there are so many benefits to be had.”