By John Helmer, Moscow Two men, Dmitrij Harder and Andrey Ryjenko, have been convicted in parallel proceedings in a US court and a UK court of arranging and receiving bribes in business transactions with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). After several postponements over a year, Harder will be sentenced in US District […]

by Editor - Thursday, June 29th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow Since the 14th century it’s been said that if you take a pitcher to the well too often, it will eventually come back broken. When it comes to the market in Russian avant-garde art, taking the same picture to the well twice may be once too often. 

by Editor - Wednesday, June 28th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the government-owned bank established in London in 1991 to finance market boosting projects in the former Soviet Union, has been secretly aiding UK and US intelligence services in espionage targeted at Russia. The US is a 10% shareholder in the bank, the UK […]

by Editor - Monday, June 26th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow When it happened eight months ago, the arrest of little known public works contractor Sergei Vladimirovich Maslov (lead image, right) made a sensational bang. The outcome, eight months later, is a silent ringing one; that’s ringing as in Russian telephone justice.   At his palatial home at Arkhangelskoye, outside Moscow, on […]

by Editor - Friday, June 23rd, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow Deep in the inner recesses of the Kremlin there is a Russian group who crave to be loved by the American Establishment. For them shaking the hands of stuntman Steven Seagall or boxer Roy Jones Jr. – recent recipients of celebrity Russian passports — or of moviemaker Oliver Stone, doesn’t quite […]

by Editor - Wednesday, June 21st, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow German military records have been found in a Polish government archive in Warsaw revealing that Michael Chomiak (lead image, left), maternal grandfather of Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland (right), volunteered to serve in the German invasion of Poland long before the German Army attacked the Soviet Union and invaded Ukraine.   […]

by Editor - Sunday, June 18th, 2017
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  By John Helmer, Moscow Mystery moves in a godly way, wonders to perform. Even on state television, in Russia’s secular democracy.     President Vladimir Putin (lead image, right) was taken by surprise, he said yesterday, by the first question ever asked during his annual Direct Line national broadcast about the affairs of the Russian […]

by Editor - Thursday, June 15th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow Johnny Appleseed, an eighteenth century nurseryman and orchardist, is honoured in his American homeland for being a patriotic soldier in the  war against the British, and for going barefooted in the mission of Jesus Christ to convert the native Indians, whose tribal lands he enriched with apple nurseries.  It’s the job […]

by Editor - Wednesday, June 14th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s asset-holding company Sistema has not inspired investor confidence since September of 2014. That was when Yevtushenkov was arrested in Moscow and charged with fraud and money-laundering in connexion with Sistema’s takeover of Bashneft, a Volga region oil producer.  That year, Sistema’s market capitalization on the London Stock Exchange dropped […]

by Editor - Tuesday, June 13th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow Sherlock Holmes pointed the way in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet in 1892: “When you have eliminated the impossible,” he said, “whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” If you believe the evidence of the US Democratic Party, the Director of Central Intelligence,  the NATO Defense College, the US […]

by Editor - Tuesday, June 13th, 2017
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