By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

A black valentine is a communication between intelligence services with a message that looks well-meant but is the reverse in fact.  Between friendly, cooperating or allied intelligence services, like the Russian and Iranian, the black valentine is a criticism. A sharp one.

Yevgeny Krutikov, a former Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer and now a security analyst for Vzglyad, the Kremlin-backed security analysis platform in Moscow, reports frequently on intelligence operations against Russia by the US, British, German, and Israeli agencies.  In a new report he analyzes the open-source materials on how the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was planned and carried out; the division of labour between the Israeli intelligence agencies and the CIA; and the conduct of Iran’s security services.  

Krutikov does not say explicitly that he has checked with his Russian intelligence sources. That he has made these checks before composing and publishing his report is communicated by indirection: with his phrases “details are gradually becoming clear”, “as a rule”, “classic picture”, and “quite convincing”; in the question with which Vzglyad cleared the title of the report before running it:  “Who is responsible for the failure to protect the Supreme Leader of Iran?”; and finally, in Krutikov’s answer: “Iran has been negligent about security measures and facilities which many other countries would consider compulsory. The reasons for this are related both to the technological lag (including due to years of sanctions), and to the psychology of Iranian officials and top-level politicians, as well as the general mentality of the local population.”   

Krutikov endorses as accurate the London newspaper account, based on Israeli sources, which appeared on March 2: “killing Khamenei was a political decision, not simply a technological achievement, said more than half a dozen current and former Israeli intelligence officials interviewed for this story.  When the CIA and Israel determined that Khamenei would be holding a meeting on Saturday morning [February 28] at his offices near Pasteur Street, the chance to kill him alongside so much of Iran’s senior leadership was especially opportune.”  

This Financial Times publication was also used by the Israelis and Americans to send their own black valentine to the Iranians. “Israeli intelligence had information from signals intelligence, such as the hacked traffic cameras and deeply penetrated mobile phone networks. One of the people said it showed that the meeting with Khamenei was on schedule, with senior officials heading to the location. But the Americans had something even more concrete — a human source, both people familiar with the situation said. The CIA declined to comment.”  

Whether these claims are true or false, Krutikov’s republication is a signal of the negative  Russian assessment of the first stage of the war.  This assessment is that the Iranians have failed to follow the technical advice and special assistance which the Russian military has been providing, especially since the war of last June.  This is alibi and hand-washing — Krutikov is reporting that in Moscow military and intelligence officers are saying they are not at fault for the deaths of Khamenei and senior Iranian military officers who were with him at the time of the attack.

Krutikov does not disclose what his sources know nor the questions they don’t want to answer in public: when did GRU learn the Israel-American attack of February 28 was about to begin? When was this intelligence warning sent to the Security Council and President Vladimir Putin?  Was this warning communicated to the Iranians, and when? Did the attack catch Putin by as much surprise as it took Khamenei?

Krutikov’s conclusion is that the Iranians are to blame for the misfortune.  This conclusion contradicts the claims, repeated in the alternative media of American military bloggers,  of Russian (and Chinese) assistance to Iran for its defence;  early warning, electronic jamming, and interception of Israeli and US air, ground and ship-fired missiles and drones;  command and control of operations; and target and flight guidance for Iran’s missile and drone counter-attacks.

In explaining his conclusion Krutikov claims there can be no meeting of minds between the Russians and the Iranians – the “psychology” and the “general mentality” are too far apart.

If this is true – that’s to say, if President Putin, his security advisor Yury Ushakov, the military and intelligence members of the Security Council, and the General Staff believe it to be true – then this is a signal to the Trump Administration that they can escalate their operations against Iran without the risk of clashing with or killing Russian forces.

On the other hand, if this isn’t true, then Krutikov’s black valentine is meant for the Americans and Israelis, in order to deceive them into over-confidence and lure them into an Iranian-Russian trap.

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by Editor - Wednesday, March 4th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has announced: “Even as we continue to highly appreciate those mediation efforts being provided by the United States we rely on ourselves only and it is us who defend our own interests.”  As for the US “mediation efforts” – read Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner — Peskov added: “Of course, we are assessing the situation and drawing the appropriate conclusions. But we are continuing to work in our own interests.”  

Never before has the head of the Russian state felt obliged to add the qualifier “but” to the public reassurance that he is “work[ing] in our own interests”. To whom was Peskov addressing this reassurance, and why? Who doubts that the President’s principal negotiator with Witkoff and Kushner, Kirill Dmitriev, has been “defend[ing] our own interests”?

Dmitriev was the last Russian to negotiate with Witkoff and Kushner less than 48 hours before the attack on Iran began. “We are not commenting on anything”, he said as he left the talks in Geneva.

By then the Russian General Staff knew the attack on Iran was about to begin. Since then Dmitriev has issued several tweets, no Telegram posts. He has said nothing in support of Iran, nothing in criticism of the US and Israel. Instead, he has told the European Union  (EU) they should now be regretting their sanctions war. “Not only an oil shock but also a natural gas shock. EU gas prices have already risen 22% since the attack on Iran and could more than DOUBLE soon. The EU’s strategic blunder of avoiding cheap and reliable Russian gas is backfiring. Europe once again will need Russia to survive.”  He repeated his hope that there will be “a major shift in the EU’s position as they begin to realize how their disastrous energy decisions created enormous risks, which are now materializing due to the conflict in Iran. Ideologically driven economic decisions pursued by the EU were wrong. The EU’s atonement may be late.”  

Dmitriev has also announced his support for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), “one of the truly neutral places in the world, focused on peacemaking and prosperity”.  

In the new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid, we discuss what Russian leaders have said, done, not said, not done as the war heads towards the use of nuclear weapons and  as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has explicitly warned. View or listen by clicking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cds5p875iNs 

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by Editor - Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In investigating war and peace, life and death, truth and lies, innocence and guilt, there is hindsight bias and there is confirmation bias.

Hindsight bias occurs when, with the evidence of what has just happened, the investigator is sure he anticipated the outcome from the beginning and is convinced he knew it all along. Confirmation bias operates forward in time, and also retrospectively, as new evidence is searched for in an investigation, interpreted when found, even fabricated, to prove what the investigator already suspected or believed to be the truth.

These are the biases you the reader, and I the investigator, must beware of, especially now, if to believe the following reconstruction of the war which has just begun.

• Iran had agreed in the negotiations to the nuclear warhead and enrichment conditions, and probably also the agreement to stop backing Hezbollah, the Iraqis and the Houthis.
  Evidence:  https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17Bepid5iL/?sfnsn=mo 

• The sticking point was the Iranian missile programme — and plainly that was non-negotiable for the Iranians.

• Israel sees the missile threat from Iran as existential — it certainly is, according to the  maps by Theodore Postol of a 500-missile Iranian raid on Israel (lead image).

• Therefore, it doesn’t take Chabadniki like Benjamin Netanyahu and Jared Kushner reading their holy books to conclude that Iran must be destroyed before they destroy Israel, no matter what international law, the articles of the United Nations Charter, or the rest of the world thinks. 

• General Daniel Caine and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) told President Donald Trump that there was no certainty that a conventional attack on Iran would either achieve decapitation and regime change, or destroy the Iranian underground missile stocks and systems for overground retaliation against Israel. He advised a “balancing act”.  

• The Israelis have been emphatic in Netanyahu’s meetings with Trump in Miami and Washington that they have no choice but to attack and will go nuclear if they judge it necessary — with or without Trump’s say-so.

• The Americans replied that they would agree to attack and try to head off nuclear attack.

• The Russians and Chinese have known all of this. They have concluded that if they tried to deter militarily the US-Israeli attack, it would go ahead anyway, and with nuclear weapons. Whether that was a Netanyahu bluff or not, President Putin believed there was reason not to issue an advance warning. We don’t know what President Xi Jinping thought of the nuclear war risk and what he thought of the reason for not issuing an advance warning. We know he didn’t.  

We also know that the Russians and Chinese have been at loggerheads over something so strategic and important that they have been repeatedly hinting at it without disclosing the details since last December.  

So here we are on the evidence, on the brink, and Trump has said so.  The US and Israel will press their attack until they are confident that the Iranian missile defences are totally destroyed – “until all of our objectives are achieved”, Trump has said. Military sources say that the Iranians  have been hitting targets in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and will be aiming at refineries and electricity power generating power plants. If the Iranians can, they will launch the attack on Israel which Postol has mapped as near-total destruction of the Israeli cities. If they do, or if they are about to do, Israel will launch preemptive nuclear attack.

by Editor - Sunday, March 1st, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

At about noon, Moscow time, on Friday February 27, the Russian Security Council met in a video session. The regular weekly meeting of the Council is often at the end of the week.   

The Foreign and Defense Ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Andrei Belousov,  and the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, participated.  Unless Russian intelligence had suffered an unprecedented and catastrophic failure, the Russian decision-makers knew that the US and Israel were about to launch their new war against Iran.

The Kremlin communique of the meeting posted at 13:50 said:  “The discussion focused on steps needed to strengthen the constitutional order. Justice Minister Konstantin Chuichenko delivered the report.”  

President Vladimir Putin and the Security Council agreed not to say anything about the situation in Iran.

The next day, Saturday February 28 at 13:54 the Russian Foreign Ministry announced what it had known in advance: “The scope and character of the military, political, and propaganda preparations that preceded this reckless step, including the deployment of substantial US military forces to the region, leave no doubt that this is a deliberate, premeditated, and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent UN member state, in direct violation of the fundamental principles and norms of international law.”  

An hour later  Lavrov telephoned Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi. By then the daylight attacks on Teheran and other targets around Iran had been under way since about 07:40 Moscow time — for more than five hours. Lavrov and the Kremlin already knew the  strikes had targeted the compounds of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian Security Council and military leaders.

The public disclosure said: “The Iranian minister briefed Sergei Lavrov on IRI [sic] leadership’s steps to repel the aggression by the United States and Israel, which had once again derailed talks on peaceful settlement of the issues concerning Iran’s nuclear programme. He informed Sergei Lavrov about the plans to convene an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council. Sergei Lavrov condemned the absolutely unprovoked armed attack by the United States and Israel on Iran in violation of principles and standards of international law while totally ignoring hard repercussions for the regional and global stability and security. He pointed out the need to promptly stop the attacks against the Islamic Republic.”  The communiqué was posted at 15:06.

An hour later the Security Council was meeting again, also by video, not face to face. The Kremlin posted the brief notice at 16:30: “The situation surrounding Iran was on the agenda.” At exactly the same time, the state news agency Tass reported Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying “the meeting participants discussed the situation around Iran.”  

At 19:15, the Foreign Ministry posted the announcement that Lavrov had telephoned the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar,  Mohammed Al Thani. Referring to the US use of Qatar territory for the ongoing attacks, and the Iranian counter-attack, the communiqué said: “it is necessary that all the sides fully take into account the legitimate interests of the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf. Sergei Lavrov has reaffirmed the well-known Russian initiative on building a collective security architecture of in the Gulf area.”  

Twenty-four hours passed; Saturday turned into Sunday.

At noon, Moscow time,  Putin announced that he had sent Pezeshkian a message without speaking directly: “Please, accept my deepest condolences on the assassination of Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Seyyed Ali Khamenei and members of his family, committed in cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law. In our country, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei will be remembered as an outstanding statesman who made an enormous personal contribution to the development of friendly ties between Russia and Iran and to raising them to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership. Please, convey my most sincere sympathy and support to the family and friends of the Supreme Leader, as well as to the leadership and to the entire people of Iran.”  

Five hours later at 17:11, the Foreign Ministry announced  it had “received the news of the killing of the Supreme and Spiritual Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, members of his family, and senior Iranian officials in US and Israeli missile strikes with outrage and deep sorrow. The Russian Federation strongly and consistently condemns the practice of political assassination and manhunt for leaders of sovereign states that goes against the fundamental principles of civilised interstate relations and constitutes a grave violation of international law.”  

The Ministry also noted: “Retaliation strikes at the US military bases in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, along with the activation of anti-aircraft defence systems, have caused damage to the international airports in Dubai, Kuwait City, sea ports, high-rises and hotels in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. It has been reported that navigation has been stopped in the Strait of Hormuz. This can lead to the blocking of hydrocarbon exports to the region and create a significant imbalance in the global oil and gas markets. We call for immediate de-escalation, cessation of hostilities, resumption of political and diplomatic processes, to settle any existing problems on the basis of the UN Charter and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The legitimate interests of all the states in the Persian Gulf must be taken into account.”  

At 18:21 Lavrov telephoned China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The Russian report said they “highlighted the unity of Moscow’s and Beijing’s positions…They expressed their readiness to continue working together to help stabilise the situation”. They “condemned the large-scale military strikes launched by the United States and Israel against Iranian territory… They stressed that such acts of aggression represent a grave violation of international law and the fundamental principles of the UN Charter.”

In the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s version, it was noted that Lavrov had requested the call, not the other way round, nor by reciprocal agreement.

“China,” declared Wang, “has consistently upheld the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and opposed the use of force in international relations. It is unacceptable for the United States and Israel to launch strikes on Iran during the Iran-U.S. negotiations… it is also unacceptable for them to blatantly kill the leader of a sovereign state and incite government change…these actions violate international law and basic norms of international relations.”  

Wang proposed, according to the communiqué, “an immediate cessation of military operations. Prevent the spread and spillover of war and prevent the situation from getting out of control. China attaches great importance to the security of Gulf countries and supports them in exercising restraint.”

by Editor - Sunday, March 1st, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In order to understand what Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar did in Israel, start by reading Modi’s Knesset speech here.  

Then calculate the weight of these Indian numbers:
– There are 1.4 billion Indians; the Jews of India count for less than 5,000.
– The number of foreign tourists to India last year came to 9 million; the number of Israeli tourists,  80,000.
– The Hindu population of India comprises a majority of 80%; the Muslims of India, 14%. The Hindi-speaking population of India is a minority of  44%; the non-Hindi speakers, a majority of 56%.
– Voter support for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is weakest in the south of India where the five  most powerful states – West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Kerala – have a total population of  360 million — one-quarter of the electorate. With the exception of Kerala, which has a Communist Party government, these states have significantly higher GDP and per capita growth rates than the northern states where support for Modi is highest.
– The only state leaders to publicly criticise Modi’s new alliance with Israel are Kerala in the west and Bihar in the east.  
– The Indian economy is more dependent on export of goods and services now than it was 25 years ago. In 2000 exports of goods and services amounted to 13% of India’s GDP; in 2024 they came to 22%.  This is less export-dependent than Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia; roughly equal to Russia, China and Indonesia; and more dependent than the US.  
– The dependency of the Indian economy on imported oil is currently 89%. Only the European Union (95%), Japan (90%), South Korea (90%), and Australia (90%) are more dependent.
– To replace the imports of Russian oil which India is cutting down at the demand of the Trump Adminstration, the replacement oil will come from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iraq. More than half of India’s oil imports must transit the Strait of Hormuz.
– The top five countries supplying arms and military systems to India are, in order of magnitude,  Russia (36%), France, US, Israel, and South Korea.
– There are only three Indian arms makers in the world’s top-100 by size of revenue – they are Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics, and  Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders. They rank 44^th, 58^th and 91^st on the global table. Israel’s top-3 arms makers rank far ahead; their combined revenues are more than double the top-3 Indian companies.  
– Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics and Mazagon are state-owned and managed. The leading privately owned Indian arms builders – Tata, Adani and Ambani – are financial backers of the BJP.

In military terms Modi’s alliance with Netanyahu anticipates the privatization of India’s military-industrial complex.

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

President Vladimir Putin has an STD problem, according to sources in a position to know.

That’s Succession Testing Day – September 20, when Russian voters will go to the polls to elect a new State Duma. Between then and now, Kremlin political strategists believe they must stop the downward decline they are seeing in their polling measurements of approval for Putin’s performance, and of deeper declines which voters are registering in their approval of the prime minister, the government, the regional governors, and worst of all, the State Duma.

Through January, the independent pollster Levada is reporting declines of three to seven  percentage points for these national voter targets.  The Kremlin polls are more frequent, more precise – but secret.

Reading these polls, Putin and his advisors agree that for him to arrange a consensus successor, an orderly succession, and a secure retirement for himself, his closest associates and supporters between now and the start of the presidential campaign in 2029, there should be no rise in voter opposition, no appearance of an uncontrolled presidential candidate, no requirement for increased repression.

The politics and economics of these requirements is no recession this year or next;  no increase in war casualties; no troop mobilization; no lasting drone and missile damage to the trains and planes running on time and to the supply and price of petrol at car pumps for the summer driving season; no spread of urban terrorism.

 “In general, how would you assess the political situation in Russia?” In the Levada poll index of positive and negative answers to this question across the country, the index reached its maximum positive level of 143 just before the economic crash of 2008. In 2022 the index halved, dropping from 82 before the Special Military Operation began to 46 at mid-year. Confidence recovered by 2024 but it has been volatile since then. Over the past three months it has lost more than 10 points on the Levada scale.  

In the Kremlin polling, confidence in the political situation correlates closely with confidence in Putin and confidence in the Army. Putin’s campaign strategy accordingly requires acceleration of victory on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Moscow sources in a position to know say they are not confident that, even with the escalation of the General Staff’s  ground advance in the east of the Ukrainian battlefield and the electric war campaign in the west, the Zelensky regime will capitulate soon.

“ ‘By spring?’ ‘No.’

“ ‘How much more time?’ ‘Let’s see.’”

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by Editor - Thursday, February 26th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Before the last of the great Arab strategists was murdered by the Americans, British and French – that was Muammar Qaddafi in October 2011 – he met with an Indian delegation at Sirte, in the Libyan desert.

This is what the Indians recorded Qaddafi telling them: “Imperialism does not want India as a strong nation. Imperialists are trying to divide India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to create mini states there, and create rivalries among them. There is no reason that could lead to a war between India and Pakistan as the boundaries are known, but plots are continuing to engage them into war. Israel and United States want to see both India and Pakistan destroyed. US nowadays is pushing Israel to have a close relationship with India. Of course, Israel is not going to give any appreciable help as it does not like Indians. Israel is inciting India against Pakistan and vice versa. We know the role of the US and Israel. They did same thing during Iran-Iraq war. US was supportive of Iraq to oust Khomeini, while Israel was supplying arms to Iran. Now Israel and US are in agreement to destroy both India and Pakistan.”  

Until recently,  there were enough Indian military, intelligence and political advisors moving in person or on paper  in and out of Seva Teerth  to caution Prime Minister Narendra Modi (lead image) against his making public display of “the enduring friendship with Israel, built on trust, innovation, and a shared commitment to peace and progress” – the banner with which Modi announced his visit to Israel today.  

Even they did not dare cite Qaddafi. But that was in December when Modi cancelled the “solidarity” visit to Delhi of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  

This week, however, the traditional balance in Indian foreign policy between the Arab states, Iran,  and Israel, and the cautious balance of power in Delhi has changed, as Modi has tweeted. He will have more to add when he speaks to the Knesset. Modi has made ceremonial addresses to the parliaments of seventeen states since he won the prime ministry in 2014; each of them either hosts a large Indian diaspora or has co-signed a strategic partnership pact with India.   

Until now there has been neither with Israel.

In this podcast with Pelle Neroth Taylor in Stockholm and Martin Sieff in Washington, the evidence is presented that Modi’s trip to Israel is the strategic trap which Qaddafi explained twenty years ago.  View or listen by clicking.

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

Imperialism in the mind happens when a superiority complex turns into a national pathology of racial supremacism and is carved into stone tablets as the constitution of the Chosen People, Make American Great Again, the Final Solution, etc. It always comes a cropper.

Almost two and half thousand years ago, the expanding Athenian empire at war with the resisting Sparta tried to convince the neutral islanders of Melos to surrender and survive, or face their total destruction. The negotiation of this choice between the two sides has been retold in just thirty-two paragraphs of Thucydides’ History of Peloponnesian War.

This is best remembered in the Athenian advice to the Melians to be realistic about their chances. “You know as well as we do that when these matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends on the quality of power to compel, and that in fact the strong do what they can and the weak accept what they must.” Because the Melians refused to submit, what followed was genocide – the Athens killed every adult male and enslaved the women and children.

There are several less well-known paragraphs in which the Athenians justified their life-or-death offer, and the genocide to come. “We rule the sea,” the Athenians said, “and you are islanders, and weaker islanders too than the others; it is therefore particularly important that you should not escape.” This is genocide for its exemplary effect – not to limit resistance to imperial power on the part of the weak but instead to remove all hope in the endurance of the weak by destroying hope and life together.  

“If one already has solid advantages to fall back upon, one can indulge in hope. It may do harm but will not destroy one. But hope is by nature an expensive commodity and those who are risking all on one cast find out only what it means only when they are already ruined.” Genocide is meant to extinguish all hope by extinguishing all life. The Final Solution, as the Germans called it.

When Indian strategists advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the Israeli destruction of the Palestinians is an operational necessity for the Indian ambition to trade north and westwards  through the India Middle East Europe Corridor (IMEC), they have been trapping themselves. They are mistaking the operational necessity for economic growth with a strategy of destroying all their enemies, so that no hope of resistance can survive.

But empires don’t destroy hope of resistance. Imperialists who believe so have always been  defeated. The Athenian genocide on Melos was reversed within eleven years. The German genocide of the Jews was reversed within four, at the establishment of the Israeli state. In another 75 years the Jews were inflicting genocide on the Palestinians. The Indians, who have survived to reverse several British genocides, are now being persuaded by their prime minister, his advisers and financiers to believe that genocide can be worked to their advantage, big and small – that Gautam Adani’s investment in the port of Haifa, for example, will be more profitable if Gaza is forever Jewish; also, Anil Ambani’s investment in Rafael Advanced Defence Systems.

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by Editor - Tuesday, February 24th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

The Swedish Government has admitted it has no direct evidence of the cause of Alexei  Navalny’s death – only British Government hearsay.

In a series of email exchanges last week, the Swedish Foreign Ministry has revealed that its military laboratories and scientific establishments have not received post-mortem samples of Navalny’s tissues. There has been no Swedish analysis of the toxicology of those samples. There is no Swedish documentation proving  in the toxicology of the Navalny samples epibatidine poisoning as the cause of Navalny’s death on February 16, 2024.

Forensically speaking, the Swedish Government does not know — cannot know — if Navalny died of natural causes or was poisoned to death. Ten days ago, however, on February 14, the Swedish Government signed with four other states – UK, Germany, France and The Netherlands – an announcement of fact and allegation of murder it had no intention to verify.   

“The UK, Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands are confident [sic] that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin,” the statement declared.   “This is the conclusion [sic] of our Governments based on analyses [sic] of samples from Alexei Navalny. These analyses have conclusively [sic] confirmed the presence of epibatidine. Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. It is not found naturally in Russia. Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes. But given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms [sic], poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death. Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him.”

Sic is the old Latin adverb manuscript which editors traditionally used to mark an original word or term that applied to a surprising claim, faulty reasoning, fabrication,  or falsehood which the reader might otherwise interpret as a mistake of transcription. No mistake here by the Swedes – this wording is their cover for not being caught at a provable lie.

An investigation in Stockholm by lawyer Mats Nilsson, based on Swedish freedom of information law, has produced the record to show that the only conclusion the Swedish Government has reached is to accept that Porton Down, the British Government’s chemical warfare laboratory, which synthesized epibatidine at least a decade ago and has accumulated operational stocks since then, has reported the discovery of that poison in the Navalny samples.

However, the British Government has not transferred these samples to Sweden for investigation. The Swedish Government’s chemical warfare laboratory at Umeå  does not confirm it has either received the samples, or analysed them, or reported any findings.

Instead, a series of emailed answers from the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s Disarmament Non-proliferation and Export Control (NIS) Unit has repeated the February 14 joint statement allegations. When requested to substantiate them, the Ministry has added a series of disclaimers: “we will not comment on the details regarding how the samples were obtained. What we can say is that we have high confidence in the integrity of the process… We will not comment on the details of the entities involved in the forensic investigation… We will not comment on the exact details of the identification process.   We will not comment on the details regarding how the samples from Navalny were obtained. What we can say is that we have high confidence in the integrity of the chain of custody.”

Pressed to clarify how, with these disclaimers, the Swedish  Government had drawn its conclusion that Navalny had been poisoned by epibatidine, the Foreign Ministry acknowledged there have been no Swedish laboratory analyses or reports. “Such documents are not kept by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, an anonymous official speaking for the Ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry has also attempted to conceal that Porton Down synthesized and stocked epibatidine long before the Russians. “Synthetic routes to epibatidine can be found in open sources and several methods have been published. Open source information has also showed that at least two entities connected to the Russian chemical weapons programme have studied epibatidine since 2013.” The Swedish Foreign Ministry has intentionally omitted that the first British synthetic production of the poison was reported twenty years before, in 1993.  American synthesis had occurred at least a decade earlier.  

The only explicit admission is that the Swedish Government has “high confidence in the integrity” of the British Government’s chemical warfare laboratory at Porton Down but wants to conceal the role which that laboratory has played in manufacturing a new Russian poison to fool the world — exactly as the Novichok story was fabricated seven years ago.

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

The Ecuadorian Poison Dart frog, Epipedobates anthonyi,  doesn’t produce the deadly epibatidine poison out of personal spite. Indigestion, more like.

According to British toxicologists, epibatidine is refined by the frog’s innards from precursor chemicals, also toxins, which come from the flies, ants, beetles, and other bugs which live in the same environment and are within range of the frog’s tongue.  Captive frogs in a chemical warfare laboratory in the US, UK, Germany, France or Sweden would be unable to produce epibatidine unless the toxic insects the frogs eat are also captive. “Technically, a captive frog would need to be given the same variety of food that it eats in the wild,” a forensic toxicologist in England explains. “These ants, bugs, etc.  in the wild contain the toxins and chemicals which in turn the frog eats and then produces its own poison. So a lab would have a supply of these bugs that  are present in the frog’s natural environment in order for the captive frog to produce the poison. You would need to airmail live ants from Brazil to the lab. Not impossible, but if a toxicologist is going to detect the poison post-mortem anyway, why bother with such an effort.”

The British discoverers of the frog in the 1970s reported the great difficulty they had in isolating the toxicated from the untoxicated frogs in the Ecuadorian jungles. By the 1990s, however, this problem had been solved by scientists all over the civilized chemical warfare world. On payment from the military research budgets of their governments, they then synthesized epibatidine, so that the supply could be assured without the bugs and frogs on hand. In the Wikipedia summary of the science, “more than fifty ways to synthesize it in the laboratory have been devised.”  

The Americans came first in synthesizing and stocking epibatidine,  then the British.  More Americans followed in 1993.  The Chinese succeeded in their synthesis methodology at a university in Virginia, also in 1993.  The Russians were twenty years late. The first openly reported synthesis of the poison by Russian researchers was announced in 2013.  

In a British government press release, issued last week on February 14, it was claimed that “based on analyses of samples from Alexei Navalny. These analyses have conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine…Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. It is not found naturally in Russia.”  

The allegation by five governments – the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands – is that “given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death. Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him.” Referring to the Novichok allegations in Germany when Navalny was in hospital in Berlin and in the UK following the Skripal and Sturgess cases, the press release adds: “only the Russian state had the combined means, motive and disregard for international law to carry out the attacks.”

This is false.

The state chemical warfare establishments of the US and UK had not only synthesized epibatidine more than a decade before the Russians, but they had accumulated substantial stocks for battlefield antidote testing, as well as for commercial production of painkillers.

Like the role of Porton Down (Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, DSTL, see lead image) in producing and stocking Novichok in the UK before the alleged Russian attacks of 2018, and the German, French and Swedish laboratory roles in analyzing the Navalny samples in 2020, the means, motive and opportunity for falsifying the Russian poison story have been  openly documented for years.

Yulia Navalnaya’s presentations of the poisoning allegation confirm that she and the government agencies behind her have been preparing it for more than six months at laboratories they refuse to identify, and with evidence of tissue samples which, after two years, are forensically worthless. That means there is no proof that Navalny’s samples are genuine – that they have not been tampered with.

“Conclusive” may well be the evidence of epibatadine in the Navalny tissue samples, but it is “highly likely” —  the evidence standard identified in the press release —  that the poison evidence has been added after Navalny’s death. Speaking scientifically, tracing epibatadine from the Ecuadorian frog is herpetology; the same process in the current information war and in vulpine zoology has been recognized by forensic scientists as “the fox smells his own hole first.”

(more…)

by Editor - Thursday, February 19th, 2026
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