By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

No president in his right mind goes willingly into elections facing inflation, war casualties, recession, and hope for investment from his rivals and enemies – simultaneously.

I’m not talking about Donald Trump on November 3, the Congressional election day.   This is about Vladimir Putin on September 20, the State Duma election day.

The risk to Putin is that, if ballot manipulation and fraud aren’t counted, the voter mandate for the Communist Party (KPRF) will be greater than for United Russia, the ruling party, by a ratio of about 35% to 30%; and that the number of Duma deputies representing the opposition parties altogether will reach a majority of the 450 seats. This would put United Russia in a minority for the first time, and Putin as weak as he was in 2000, when the Communist Party (KPRF) held 113 seats.    

In the latest VTsIOM poll,  for example, United Russia has dwindled to 30.6%, while the New People Party  has reached 11% and continues to climb. VTsIOM always undercounts the Communist Party voters; they don’t confide in pollsters. On the other hand, in VTsIOM’s latest poll of trust in the top-five national politicians, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov ranked fourth with 30%, trailing ex-President Dmitry Medvedev (37%), Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (57%), and President Putin (77%).  

Russian vote fraud is not so much if as how big – most experts estimate between 5% and 10% of the 114 million votes registered to be eligible.   Ballot rigging of that magnitude has been well understood by Russian voters since Boris Yeltsin took power in 1991; it is expected still.

The warning signs in the public approval polls have been flashing since last September as the percentages have begun to grow out of the margin of statistical error. From last September to February,  approval for the President has dropped from 87% to 82%; approval for Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is down from 75% to 68%; approval of the Government, down from 74% to 67%; approval of region governors, down from 73% to 69%; approval of the State Duma, down from 62% to 58%.  

In the election-winning, election-losing formula of Votes + Money + Bullets,  these numbers are an urgent challenge for the Kremlin to recover the votes.

The accounting for bullets is this. On the Ukraine war front, direct sources report seeing concentrations for a “major offensive” of Russian infantry and tanks, with heavy artillery and air support, “on the Konstantinoka, Slavyansk, and Kramatorsk directions.” Another military source says this is the Russian response to last month’s Ukrainian counter-offensive in which territory was lost. “Russian forces are now attempting to take the [lost territory] back. I don’t see anything, however, that represents a major armoured thrust. There will be shaping attacks and the same kind of small-unit exploitation, then consolidation, we’ve seen before. I believe that if, or when, a major offensive comes, it will be a drive on Zaporozhye city and a move north to cut off, or threaten to cut off, the remaining Ukrainian formations in the Donbass.”

Success for the Russian operational strategy in all sectors of the front is dependent on methodically slow artillery, air, missile, and drone preparation; limitation of casualty risk by dispersion of men; concentration of numerical superiority by rapid manoeuvre plus deception.   Since last September, the decline in the weekly Russian casualty rates — as measured by anti-Russian sources — has been a sharp one.  Corroboration can be inferred from the  daily Moscow briefings by the Ministry of Defense which are reporting a 10% to 15% drop in estimated Ukrainian casualties compared to December and January; this is a sign of fewer direct engagements and thus of corresponding Russian casualties.

In parallel with what sources believe to be Putin’s tight rein on ground operations at the front, the General Staff is expanding its missile and drone attacks deep into western Ukraine, aiming at the energy infrastructure between Kiev and Lvov;  the railway links from Poland;  and command bunkers for Ukrainian and NATO officers. To most Russian military observers this is attrition strategy unchanged, not a shift to a knock-out offensive.  No source expects a victory parade by the autumn elections.

The election risk to Putin, therefore, is primarily economic. At his March 23 session with domestic policymakers, this is how he called it: “What stands out most is the weak, negative trend in key macroeconomic indicators.”   Putin  meant the 2.1% recession in the GDP measure in January. He didn’t say what the officials  around the table understand but don’t say in public: this is the start of the two-year recession Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has projected to run from minus 2.5% of GDP to minus 3.5%.   

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by Editor - Friday, March 27th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

“Sergei Victorovich”, President Vladimir Putin said behind his hand to his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov (lead image, left). “Do me a favour. When you’re talking to the Iranians, promise whatever they need to keep fighting and deter Trump. But keep it secret. And in public, waffle. Your job is to reassure the Americans we are powerless — you are powerless — I’m impotent.”

Just after lunch on Monday, Lavrov spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who had initiated the call with urgency. The published Russian communiqué said: “The situation in the Persian Gulf zone, which was degraded by the United States and Israel, was discussed. Sergei Lavrov pointed to the categorical unacceptability of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, including the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which create unacceptable safety risks of Russian personnel and are fraught with catastrophic environmental consequences for all countries of the region without exception. Mutual concern was expressed about the dangerous spread of the conflict provoked by Washington and Tel Aviv to the Caspian Sea.  The Russian side noted the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a political settlement, taking into account the legitimate interests of all parties involved, primarily Iran. This position Russia will be guided by the UN Security Council. A.Araghchi thanked the Russian leadership for the significant diplomatic and other support provided to the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the supply of humanitarian assistance.”  

Araghchi has omitted to publish a record of what was really discussed.  

“Pishka”, Putin said to Dmitry Peskov, his spokesman (centre). “When you’re asked questions about Iran, do me a favour — say nothing. Your job is to convince our people at home who vote for me that I know best, and that I won’t be getting them into more trouble than we already have.”

Peskov hadn’t eaten his lunch on Tuesday when local reporters asked him to clarify the President’s attitude towards the Israeli Air Force attack on the Iranian Caspian Sea port, Bandar Anzali, through which Iran and Russia run heavy-cargo ship deliveries in both directions, both civil and military. “As for these reports”,he said, “we haven’t seen them. To be honest, I don’t have any information on the matter.”  Peskov was following  Putin’s order, if clumsily,  because what he said was an obvious lie.   

Four days before, Lavrov’s spokesman had confirmed the Caspian port attack. “The US-Israeli coalition continues pouring fuel on the flames of the war they have unleashed in the Middle East, which could cause this war to spread even further. On March 18, a bomb attack was carried out against the Iranian port of Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea. That major Caspian port is an important trade and logistics hub that is actively used in Russian-Iranian trade, including for food deliveries. The strike has affected the economic interests of Russia and the other Caspian states that maintain transport communications with Iran via that port. The regional countries and the international community have always regarded the Caspian Sea as a safe zone of peace and cooperation. The aggressors’ reckless and irresponsible actions pose a threat of dragging Caspian states into an armed conflict. We once again firmly call for the immediate cessation of hostilities and resuming efforts to achieve a political settlement of the situation in the Middle East, which is increasingly affecting neighbouring regions.”  

In these private moments, deep behind the Kremlin wall, what Putin means to say is that Russia has now gone into recession, and the timing is very bad for the coming State Duma elections. Putin is asking his spokesmen to put up a smokescreen, an alibi for the difference between what the General Staff and intelligence agencies are doing and what he doesn’t want domestic voters or the Trump White House to blame him for.

Instead, he is counting on his spokesman for oligarch capital and Trump bribery, Kirill Dmitriev,  to tweet several times a day on the fidelity of Russia as a strategic partner. “As the largest holder of natural resources in the world and a top-3 producer of most commodities, “ according to Dmitriev a few hours ago, “Russia is well positioned for the predicted and emerging Era of Extreme Scarcity.”   “Russian energy is indispensable to easing the world’s largest energy crisis. EU bureaucrats will soon be forced to recognize this reality, acknowledge their strategic blunders, and atone.”  

To interpret these signals of Russia’s two-track policy in the war against Iran and predict what will happen next, listen to this podcast with Nima Alkhorshid, aired on Tuesday morning.

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by Editor - Wednesday, March 25th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In the pre-dawn hours of March 4, the Iranian frigate, Islamic Republic of Iran Ship (IRIS) Dena, was racing eastward on the Indian Ocean. From the southwest, a tailwind of 7 knots and swell of 1.5 metres added to the Mowj-class vessel’s top speed of 30 knots. At coordinates 6.0073 degrees North , 79.8654 degrees East, the Dena was 9 nautical miles (nm) outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters;  19 nm west of the harbour of Galle, a port on the southwestern coast of the island.

It was 05:06 local time. Dawn was an hour away. On the bridge of the Dena the clock and speed log showed that in just 18 minutes the vessel and its crew would be safe from US pursuit and attack.

That was when a US Navy submarine, the USS Charlotte, fired two torpedoes. One missed; one struck the Dena, holed the aft section, triggered an internal explosion, and sank the ship within three minutes (lead image, top). Of the crew’s 180-man complement, 32 were rescued alive by the Sri Lankan coast guard; 87 bodies were recovered from the water; 61 were lost. Altogether, 148 were killed (lead image, below).  

In the Pentagon briefing which followed,  Secretary of War Peter Hegseth said:  “an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo, quiet death.”  Hegseth intended to reveal that the position of the Dena was “in international waters”. He did not mean to reveal the US had been listening to the Dena’s communications as it was transmitting, live. The reason the Dena was reporting it was safe was that it was just 18 minutes from Sri Lankan territorial waters.

The order to catch and kill the Dena had been issued earlier. It required the Charlotte to intercept the course of the Dena before it reached Galle — before it reached Sri Lankan territorial waters. The Charlotte almost missed the interception point and almost missed the target. The Dena almost reached safety.

The reason for both outcomes is that the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and the Foreign Minister, Subraymanyam Jaishankar, had refused to allow the Dena to enter an Indian port when Jaishankar has acknowledged the request was made on February 28. According to Jaishankar’s statement on March 6,   also reported by the BBC on March 9,  the safe harbour request was made for the Dena and its two escorts, IRIS Lavan, a landing ship,  and IRIS Bushehr, a cadet training and replenishment vessel,  According to Jaishankar, only one vessel was allowed sanctuary at Kochi, on India’s west coast; this was the Lavan.

“ ‘The Iranian side had requested permission on 28 February for three ships in the region to dock at our ports. This was accorded on 1 March,’ Jaishankar told parliament on Monday. ‘Iris Lavan actually docked on 4 March in Kochi. The crew is currently in Indian naval facilities. We believe that this was the right thing to do.’”  

There has been no Indian explanation and no Indian media reporting of what transpired between February 28 and the morning of March 4, when the Dena was attacked and sunk.

The available evidence suggests that the refusal on Modi’s and Jaishankar’s orders forced the Dena to reverse its course from off the western Indian coast near Kochi and sail southeastwards for more than three days, February 28 to March 3. In that three-day interval, Indian naval intelligence on its position and communications was relayed to the US, on Modi’s direction. The Indians also reported to the Americans the communications they were receiving from the Iranian embassy in New Delhi and from Iranian officials in Teheran.  The two senior Indian officials also added to the pressure from the US and also from Israel on the Sri Lankan Government to delay its decision on the Iranian request for sanctuary, all the while lying to Iranian officials in Delhi and Teheran.

These actions make Modi and Jaishankar complicit in the US submarine action; they are culpable as accessories in the murder of the Dena’s crew. This is an Indian war crime.

The crime is compounded by the cover-up or destruction of the evidence , ordered by Modi and his subordinates, of maps, course location data, ship-to-shore communications,  and the time sequence from February 25, when the Dena and its escorts, the Lavan  and Bushehr, left the east central Indian port of Visakhapatnam, headed for their home port in Iran.

In a press statement on March 5 by the Sri Lankan President, Anura Dissanayake,    and a subsequent speech he made to parliament on March 20, it was revealed that on February 26, two days before the war began,  Iran requested sanctuary in Sri Lanka for all three Iranian Navy ships.

“A request was made to us,” Dissanayake said, “on 26 February, 2026 for three naval ships to visit Sri Lanka on 9 and 13 March as part of a goodwill visit aimed at strengthening cooperation. We were in the process of reviewing this request for approval. On the same evening, the United States also requested permission for two warfare aircrafts to land at Mattala International Airport in Sri Lanka. We took a clear and firm decision based on our policy of maintaining neutrality. At that time, there were already indications of escalating military tensions. Consequently, we did not grant approval for either of these requests. Some questioned why permission was not granted for the Iranian vessels. Had we done so, it would have compromised our overall neutrality. Furthermore, it would have brought a military conflict, which was distant from our region, closer to Mattala and the Port of Colombo. Regardless of the pressures faced, we acted to safeguard the country and preserve our neutrality. ” 

Dissanayake’s admission reveals that the Iranian request for safe harbour preceded by two days the February 28 sanctuary request to India. The Sri Lankan evidence suggests that after the February 26 refusal from Colombo, the Dena sailed on towards Kochi as Iranian officials tried to negotiate with Modi and Jaishankar.

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by Editor - Wednesday, March 25th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

A little socialism and working-class patriotism still go a long way among Russians.

This is despite the new, carefully laid plans of CIA Director, John Ratcliffe (lead image, left) to make it appear otherwise,  at least in the western media (right).

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by Editor - Monday, March 23rd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

This website and I have been banned from appearing on Gunners Shot, the strategic and military analysis website produced in Chennai by Lieutenant General (retd) P.R. Shankar which is widely read by the national security and military staffs around Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The reason is that no analysis is to be allowed of Modi’s alliance with Israel and the US in the war against Iran which began on February 28, three days after Modi declared to the Israeli Knesset, Am Yisrael Khai – that is the Hebrew call to war against the enemies of the Jews.   Jai Hind, Modi added to standing cheers, clapping,  and stamping from the Knesset.

State censorship has followed for any publication the Modi government considers critical of his alliance with Israel. This month it has been extended to films.  

Criticism of that (and of me) has been endorsed by veteran Indian officials and military officers.  “You”, said one, “seem to have fallen into the category of Westerners who make a quick trip to this diverse, ancient civilisation and arrive at conclusions which suit their preconceptions…Modi is one of the best Prime Ministers this country has ever had…India is an old civilisation which has always welcomed and absorbed those who came here…including the Jews… Pragmatism in foreign policy is welcome, whether you agree with individual issues or tilts at a particular point in time or not. However, India is definitely not anywhere near fascism.”

The pragmatism, confirmed by Indian sources, is this:

The 7-day war to destroy Iran which Modi expected and supported from before it began has failed; his India Middle East Europe Corridor (IMEC) strategy  has been exploded as defenceless; Israeli air defence and air attack missiles, drones, electronics, and other materiel, for which Modi has agreed to pay almost $9 billion, have been defeated; Modi’s security pact with the Zayid al-Nahyan family of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a dead letter forty days after Modi signed it; Indian worker remittance incomes and business revenues from the Gulf Arab states are ruined; Modi and his officials have been reduced to telephoning Teheran to request emergency oil, gas, and fertiliser relief through the Hormuz Strait.

The short-term cost of repatriation and exporter compensation (war premiums for demurrage, freight rates and insurance, etc.) is already budgeted in New Delhi at $6.2 billion;  the loss of remittances may grow to ten times as much. New investment bank reports  indicate that the projected 7% annual growth of the Indian economy will go into reverse;  the fall of up to one percent of GDP will cost up to $45 billion.

Inside the Indian security establishment, Prime Ministry, Ministry of External Affairs, Indian Navy and the intelligence services there are desperate attempts to retrieve position and power,  deflect blame, and escape the scapegoating now under way.

Here are the questions and my answers which are no longer allowed in India.

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by Editor - Sunday, March 22nd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

This is the first book to expose abuse of power by Australian coroners investigating the cause of death when there is suspicion of medical negligence in the combination of popular prescription drugs – widely used benzodiazepines with treatments for non-life threatening conditions such as vertigo, vestibular migraine, and epilepsy.   

The book records the evidence of the sudden death of Tatiana Vasilievna Turitsyna, my wife, and of the two years which have followed of forensic investigations to uncover the cause, the role of the treating doctor, then the delay, obstruction, and cover-up by the Coroners Court of Victoria.

Throughout the world this court is the only one of its kind to have been investigated and then prosecuted by the state for abuses of power by the coroners in charge – this is corruption in the law.  In 2023 the court was found guilty, sentenced, and fined almost $400,000, but no individual was held culpable. That was the outcome of a plea bargain — a cover-up to keep the evidence secret, the individual coroners blameless, and the penalty paid out of public money from the court budget.  

In a presentation that is unprecedented in the practice of Anglo-American law, in Australia and Canada, this book has become the jury book or brief of the case of suspicious, sudden drug death. It is now a model for the international public debate on corruption by the pharmaceutical companies in cahoots with government regulators, the medical profession, judges, and lawyers.  

This is your summons to serve on the jury.

You, the reader, are called to judge the evidence and the legal argument; and then cast your verdict, not only for the doctor and coroner but also the Supreme Court judge who conducted a trial of his own, dismissing every count of the author’s case, and endorsing the coroner’s decisions without qualification.

This is also a textbook on subversion in our lives and deaths.

This is how the victims of lethal combinations of drugs are blamed for dying of heart attacks that are judged to be “natural causes” when the evidence that they are nothing of the kind is buried according to the “rules-based international order”.  

If you are a survivor of a crime of “natural causes”, here’s how to fight for your right, and the right of the dead, to natural justice.

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by Editor - Monday, March 16th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

When pirates fall out over their loot, and one tips the Black Spot to another, that’s the summons to give up the map of Treasure Island with the location of their buried treasure; or die.

The Black Spot, scrawled on a page torn from a bible, was the summons which opens Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883); causes the fatal stroke of Billy Bones, the pirate who kept the map of the buried treasure hidden in his sea chest; and led on to the adventure which millions of children have read, and I continue to read today. I do this because the story of the Black Spot foretells the future when evil men get desperate to the point of killing each other.  

When American and Israeli naval and air forces combined on February 28 to deliver their biblical Black Spot on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and members of his national security council in Teheran, killing them all, the attackers failed to capture the treasure which had been their purpose. That was the overthrow of the Iranian state and the destruction of that state’s will and its capacity to inflict comparable destruction on Israel.

The evidence of the US and Israeli failure on February 28 and in the fifteen days of the war since then,  is that retaliation by Iran has reduced both US and Israeli missile defences, broken through dozens of times, and on March 1 and again on March  9 – according to this uncorroborated report with simulations, projections, and guesswork,   from Minute 5 — targeted the Israeli military base of Sdot Mikha, near Tel Aviv. That is the site of Israel’s nuclear warhead bunkers, vertical launch silos, and mobile truck launchers of the Jericho-2 and Jericho-3 missiles.   

Whether or not these were actual hits or near-misses by the Iranians, or calculated warnings, and whether or not Sdot Mikha was in fact the target, the outcome now, after fifteen days, is the consensus of many sources:  Iran’s missile launch capacity and munition stocks have survived and now threaten to inflict on Israel a level of destruction which neither Sdot Mikha’s defences nor the Israeli state’s, can combat, repulse, survive intact.

What happens next? The answer is not a fresh one. It was demonstrated a year ago during the four-day Indian Operation Sindoor against Pakistan between May 5 and May 10, 2025. According to the Indian recounting, it was the Indian detection of Pakistani moves of nuclear warheads from bunker storage to missile deployment which triggered Indian strikes to disable Pakistan’s military command-and-control systems and expose as defenceless all targets, including nuclear missile launch sites, and to paralyse their operational control and guidance.

At that point, according to Indian sources and others, the Pakistan military command asked US Vice President JD Vance to arrange a ceasefire. That’s to say, a pause, not an armistice nor an end-of-war agreement. This was what the Indian government accepted.

Whether or not the Indian account is to be fully or partially accepted, the lesson is plain, ominously plain for now. As the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi has repeated in his US television network interviews, no humanitarian pause, no ceasefire will be accepted for negotiation; only a complete end of war agreement.  

On the Israeli side, however, the failure of their war aims leaves Israel’s military capacities, together with those of the US bases and air defence systems in the Middle East, in much worse condition than they were when Israel and the Trump Administration proposed, and Iran accepted, the ceasefire of June 24, 2025, or the terms negotiated with Aragchi by Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Muscat and Geneva last month, between February 6 and February 17, 2026.

“That race to a nuclear bomb, President Trump will never allow it,” Peter Hegseth, the US Secretary of War, said in a briefing with General Daniel Caine on March 10, “not now, not ever, not on our watch.”  Three days later, in another briefing with Caine, Hegseth repeated: “We’re on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before.”  Asked if “Iran [is] expected to meet demands of both countries [Israel] or just the US? And what are those demands?” Hegseth replied: “we’re proud to partner with the incredible capabilities the Iranians — or excuse me, the Israelis have, but our objectives are our objectives. So when those are met, as we meet those, we’ll set the — we’ll set the tempo of when those are met.”

The implication of the reporter’s question, and also of Hegseth’s answer, is that Israel may decide to escalate to achieve its war objectives at the same time as the US has decided to declare its war objectives have been achieved, cease fire, and withdraw. However, if Israel, or at least Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (lead image, right) and his associates, are on their own race to using their nuclear bomb, then that is a course of action the Trump Administration “will never allow”.

What will happen – is happening now – if Netanyahu tells Trump that in the present circumstances he has no choice but to escalate to launching a Jericho missile attack on Iran with nuclear warheads numbering from at least 20 to as many as 120?

Last May, when that step on the nuclear escalation ladder was reached in Islamabad, Washington and Delhi, this is what the Indian chief of the Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, said happened next: “There is a lot of space before the nuclear threshold is crossed. There is a lot of signalling before that…The most rational people are people in uniform when conflict takes place. That’s because they understand that conflict can swing either way. In every step which happened…I found both sides displaying a lot of rationality in their thoughts as well as their actions. Why should we assume that in the nuclear domain there will be irrationality on someone else’s part?”   For analysis, click,  

In the present war – just as it was in the genocide of Gaza since October 2023 — it is unclear how much difference in what Chauhan called rational calculation there may be between Netanyahu, his civilian advisors and political allies, and the Israeli military chiefs –or  if there is measurable difference in rationality among them at all.

If there is such a difference, and if it also exists between the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Israel-First group around Trump, and between the Pentagon (perhaps the CIA too) and the Israelis, who will there be to tear out the page of a bible, draw the Black Spot, and put it directly into Netanyahu’s hand, or through the ceiling of his bunker?

The Black Spot isn’t always a death sentence that cannot be survived, not even in the original Treasure Island. Netanyahu may have disappeared mysteriously for several days;  he may be alive today to drink coffee with both his five-fingered hands intact.   But has Netanyahu been given a warning from the White House or  from his own men, which was so surprising that, like the pirate Billy Bones in Treasure Island, he disappeared from sight, took to his bed, played dead?

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by Editor - Sunday, March 15th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Iran has made one point very clear to the United States. It will negotiate on terms for a “permanent peace” but not for a ceasefire. It will fight on against US troops if they land, against US bases in the Arab states, and against US vessels at sea; it will keep the Hormuz Strait closed.

Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi repeated this point in three interviews he gave the NBC and PBS television networks on March 6,  March 8 and March 9.  

President Vladimir Putin has made one point very clear to Iran. “I want to confirm our unwavering support of Tehran and our solidarity with our Iranian friends,” he said in his  message of March 9 to the new Supreme Leader,  Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. “Russia has been and will remain the Islamic Republic’s reliable partner. I wish you success in tackling the challenges in front of you, good health and strong spirit.”  

The next day Putin telephoned Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to “reaffirm his principled stance in favour of de-escalating the conflict as soon as possible and resolving it via political means. Masoud Pezeshkian expressed gratitude for the support provided by Russia, including in particular the humanitarian aid granted to Iran.”  De-escalation isn’t ceasefire first; as soon as possible isn’t a short war; humanitarian aid isn’t exactly military aid but it may be. Putin’s wish for Mojtaba Khamenei’s “good health” may extend to new Russian measures for his security; or they may be no more than Putin’s wish.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, then announced the maybes are mightnots. “’All of these issues were not discussed during that conversation [with Pezeshkian]’ in response to a question whether the presidents discussed Iran’s alleged demands to the United States, including guarantees against the resumption of hostilities, the right for a full peaceful nuclear fuel cycle as well as possible compensations.”   Not exactly nothing was said, Peskov meant. But he omitted to say if Putin told Pezeshkian that Russia’s support for Iran’s security and for the new Supreme Leader’s “good health” is “unwavering”.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, did say this to Aragchi in their telephone call on March 10. Russia backs negotiations “with due consideration for [the] security interests of Iran and its regional neighbours”, the foreign ministry communiqué announced.  

President Xi Jinping has made nothing very clear — by his silence.   

Instead, he has delegated Wang Yi to speak. Wang is a Communist Party Politburo member and Foreign Minister; the first rank is more important than the second. “China calls for an immediate stop to military operations to avoid the spiralling escalation of the situation”, Wang said on March 8.  “All sides should return to the negotiating table as quickly as possible, resolve differences through equal dialogue, and make efforts for realizing common security.” That’s to say, ceasefire first; negotiations second.

Wang then told his spokesman to announce on March 11: “As to China-Russia relations, both sides develop bilateral ties based on the principle of non-alliance, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party.”         This is the first time China has officially emphasized its non-alliance with Russia. At their last direct conversation on February 4, 2026, the Kremlin spokesman had said: “Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping once again noted that the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation between our two countries are at an unprecedented level, are based on equality and mutual benefit, are not directed against any third parties, and are not subject to short-term political considerations.”  “Comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation” was the watchword of their joint communiqué in Moscow on May 8, 2025;   and in Kazakhstan on July 3, 2024;   Putin told Xi in Moscow on March 21, 2023, “Russian-Chinese cooperation has truly limitless possibilities and potential, and we will continue to act in unison.”

The war against Iran is now exposing unexpected limits in the way the Russians and Chinese view each other and act.

Wang has also delegated a special envoy, Zhai Jun, “to carry out shuttle diplomacy. To prolong or escalate the conflict does not serve any party’s interest. China will continue to maintain communication with relevant parties, including parties to the conflict, step up mediation, build consensus, and work for the de-escalation of the situation.”  This week Zhai has met with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary-General, the Saudi Foreign Minister, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister. Zhai reported publicly that he “urges all parties to immediately bring about a ceasefire and end the fighting and prevent further escalation of tensions, and to return to the track of negotiation at an early date”.  But Zhai did not meet with Foreign Minister Aragchi. He omitted to tell him to cease fire first, negotiate afterwards. In the Chinese calculation, Aragchi was not a “relevant party” for Zhai’s diplomacy to shuttle to.

This casts doubt on the support Wang gave Aragchi when they spoke by telephone on March 2; the call was at the Iranian request, Wang’s communiqué reported. “Wang Yi… noted that China values the traditional friendship between China and Iran and supports Iran in safeguarding its sovereignty, security, territorial integrity and national dignity and in upholding its legitimate and lawful rights and interests… China believes that under the current grave and complex situation, Iran will maintain its national and social stability, take seriously the legitimate concerns of neighbouring countries, and ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and institutions in Iran. Seyed Abbas Araghchi noted that the Iranian side will do its utmost to guarantee the safety and security of Chinese personnel and institutions.”  

This is Chinese neutrality, according to some analysts.  It is China first; Iran after;  Russia last of all, according to others because “Beijing cares about the oil, not the [Iran] regime”.  

And so, to repeat: “As to China-Russia relations, both sides develop bilateral ties based on the principle of non-alliance, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party.”         

Does this mean that the Iran war is now threatening China’s oil supply and economic stability so seriously that there has been a crack-up in Xi’s alliance with Putin? Does “non-alliance” mean “neutrality”? Does it mean that when President Donald Trump is welcomed by Xi in Beijing in three weeks’ time, the strategic US objectives of driving a wedge between China and Russia and between China and Iran will have been achieved? For answer, listen now to the Gorilla Radio broadcast with Chris Cook, recorded on Wednesday afternoon, Vancouver time. 

For back-up evidence, click to the next page.

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by Editor - Wednesday, March 11th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

The caution which the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates showed in his method of argument by posing questions instead of answers didn’t protect him in the end from Athenian conviction and the death penalty.

That old, scarred, but honourable soldier went to trial and lost. He was condemned for impiety – introducing alternatives for the local gods – and for corrupting the youth of Athens by encouraging them to challenge the power of authority to deter disbelief and reward compliance.   

When the KGB allegedly gave me the codename Socrates forty years ago, they may have been condemning me for asking questions, or convicting me. When the FBI investigated, they acquitted me.  When Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expelled me from Moscow in September 2010 and recently extended the ban without end, he convicted me of what one of his officials said was “writing bad things about our country”.

So asking the questions is still what I am doing; and here is the question-and-answer on who wins, who loses in the outcome of the wars in Iran and Ukraine. Listen or view the podcast with Nima Alkhorshid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRJnmH68Jw8 

The Socratic method of asking what the evidence means, and asking more (and more) questions of the meaning of the evidence to those with power – money, votes and bullets – is the opposite of believing in mainstream (or alternative) authority, trusting in gods, following paymasters and party commissars, or dropping stones in wishing wells and hoping to hear the splash.  

It’s also до свидания  Alexander Dugin, Jiang Xueqin, John Mearsheimer, Andrew Napolitano, and the Gunners Shot generals – fabricators of empires without imperialism;  apocalypse without Armageddon;  messiahs for gospels they will sell you for five dollars a month.

To substantiate the podcast, the evidence follows if you click to turn the page.

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by Editor - Tuesday, March 10th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

The loss of confidence between Russia and India has been growing rapidly since Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared his support for Israel three days before the Israeli-American attack on Iran began with the assassination of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  

To signal Russian hostility, Denis Anpilov, the Russian ambassador to India, went to the Iranian Embassy in New Delhi on March 5, signed the condolence book for Khamenei, and gave a statement to the Indian media, declaring “full solidarity with the people of Iran [and] the government of Iran.”  

President Vladimir Putin had sent his condolences to Teheran on March 1.  He reiterated them in a telephone conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on March 6.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke first on March 1 with Israel’s prime minister. He then  followed up with calls to the heads of state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar. Modi ignored Iran and Russia. He also hosted two leaders of the NATO alliance against Russia on state visits to India – Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb. In Moscow contacts have stopped between the Russian Foreign Ministry and Indian officials.

A Delhi source in a position to know says:  “Russian diplomats and bankers have lost the plot. They are confused. The central direction from the Kremlin contradicts the Foreign Ministry. Iran has been set back several decades and while it survives, by the time this is over it will end up in a stone age of technology. So individual diplomats and propagandists are all playing different tunes. The visit to the embassy in Delhi was in line with the politics of [Deputy Trade Commissioner] Yevgeny Griva and Anpilov to try and sell some oil and they have done so in a very crude manner…Indians did not make public their frustrations with Putin and his Central Bank…Clearly, Russians are rattled by the fact that [President Donald] Trump has coerced Indians with tariffs and punitive actions but the Indian position behind closed doors with the  Russians is also very sharp. Indians have refrained from making any of it public.”

The riposte from Moscow is a warning that even after the US has issued India with a “good-behaviour” permission to resume buying sanctioned Russian oil – announced by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on March 6  — the preference will be to sell oil to China. Indian buyers will have to compete, bid up the price, and pay a premium. The US reward for Modi as “an essential partner of the United States”, according to Bessent,    has turned into a Russian penalty.

“The Indians have been very good actors,” Bessent told the US media.   “We had asked them to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil…they did, they were going to substitute it with US oil. But to ease the temporary gap of oil around the world, we have given them permission to accept Russian oil. We may unsanction other Russian oil.”

That last line indicates that Bessent and other US officials are debating whether to do the same for China ahead of the scheduled state visit of President Trump to Beijing between March 31 and April 2.  

The Delhi source responds: “Before, the Russians were offering nothing. That’s because all the discount on the books of the Russian exporter was actually profit for Russian intermediaries in Dubai. So there was no gain and all risk for Indians.”

In Moscow energy experts editorialised on Friday: “When India began to abandon Russian oil, some of the volumes began to go to China, and some accumulated in tankers off the coasts of India and China in the form of floating storage facilities. The owners of this oil preferred to store it in tankers, expecting prices to rise either because of Iran, which eventually paid off, or because of the start of the new car-driving season in the spring.  Tankers off the coast of India have stored 9.5 million barrels with access to port within seven days, and up to 30 million barrels in the wider waters of the Indian Ocean. These large Russian volumes…can be quickly redirected between India and China. India is currently trying to intercept some of these shipments in order not to be left alone with the surge in risks in the Persian Gulf. At the same time, the competition with China has not gone away. China also increases purchases at such times, and in general has become the key buyer by sea. Of course, this is a big plus for Russia, as it sells the cargo at a higher price, and it can also manipulate the discount between the two largest Asian markets…Also, Russia can increase production and exports by another 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day, because OPEC+  is not imposing a limit,  and demand for our oil is growing against the background of everything that is happening.”  

Chinese analysts outside China and the state media in-country have been unwilling to report or explain the policy gap which has become visible between Beijing and Moscow since last December, and has continued since the war against Iran began on February 28.  There has been no public communication between Putin and President Xi Jinping since February 4, when Yury Ushakov, Putin’s national security advisor, let slip that the “approaches [towards the US]” of the two presidents did not “fully coincide”.

Between Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi, the differences were first  acknowledged in person in Moscow on December 3.   They were again visible in the communiqués the two ministers issued after their telephone discussion of the Iran war on March 1.   

Chinese analysts speaking now in the western media are divided between those who claim “China won’t help Iran, Beijing cares about the oil, not the regime;”  and those who claim that Chinese military intelligence support for Iran “has massively improved the accuracy of Iranian missile strikes since the US cannot switch off or jam…Such support can deliver a step-function improvement to Iran’s attack lethality.”   

Chen Weihua, a retired state media correspondent, reports that “if China joined militarily, that’s just going to get more people killed. That’s not the goal we try to achieve…China always calls on both sides to stop fighting.”    Jiang Xueqin, a high school teacher in Beijing with a Yale degree in English literature,    has drawn a large podcast audience in the US by cutting and pasting from the western media, and avoiding all questions on China’s involvement in the Iran war. His recent claim that Iran is “under the Russian nuclear umbrella” is a fake.   

Social media reports from India  of the presence in the Sea of Oman of the Chinese intelligence vessel, Liao-Wang 1,  are contradicted by maritime tracking sources which have located the vessel off the Chinese coast  or at a mooring near Shanghai.

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by Editor - Sunday, March 8th, 2026
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