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New broadcast by Chris Cook with John Helmer, Victoria, B.C., Canada Click to listen    Interview starts at Minute 36:40 “Question: Is Putin’s political obituary in the western press a little premature? Answer: There’s been no conception, no baby here, no bath water.”

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By John Helmer, Moscow Paying bribes to your enemies to switch sides and become your friends is as old as monkeys and men (and women).  As gang and warfighting strategies have evolved, corruption with money was always to be preferred to force with arms because corruption is much cheaper, and the results more predictable, at […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled unanimously today in Luxembourg that acts of the European Union are lawful without the requirement for evidence meeting any standard of proof or truthfulness.  A press release will do.

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By John Helmer, Moscow The Russian economic recovery went sharply into reverse in February, according to the latest report from Rosstat, the federal state statistics service.  But voter approval for President Vladimir Putin remains super-stable at a level unknown in Europe or the rest the world. So if you are bent on fighting Russia, as […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow On Tuesday December 6, Rex Tillerson, then chief executive of ExxonMobil oil company, met then President-elect Donald Trump in New York, and was offered the post of US Secretary of State. God was watching on high and acted faster than Tillerson could.

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By John Helmer, Moscow There is a Fiona Hill on each side of the Atlantic. One is joint chief of staff for Prime Minister Theresa May in London. The other Fiona Hill (lead image, right) is also British. She was appointed this month to be senior director for Europe and Russia at the National Security […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Optimists believe that in time the truth always wins out.  Skeptics believe men and women are liars by nature, so machines are necessary to catch them out. Pessimists believe that by the time that happens  it will be too late to make a practical difference. Politics, the pessimists add, is about […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Since Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s version, expressed mortal surprise that his best friend Brutus would put in the knife, there have been no end of political surprises at whose hand turns out to be on the assassin’s knife.  In the case of the hit in January on then-Canadian Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion, […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The Russian fertilizer oligarch Andrei Guriev (lead image) lives in less than seclusion in London in the largest house of that city except for the Queen’s residence at Buckingham Palace. In 2015 the running costs of Guriev’s establishment were large but stable. But it occurred to him that the prospects of […]

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  By John Helmer, Moscow This is not a story about the past, nor about blaming the crimes of the fathers and grandfathers on their sons and daughters, or granddaughters.   This is a story of the moment when the crimes of the past and the criminal intent today turn out to be  the same […]