by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The British Government’s narrative that Russian military agents, on orders from President Vladimir Putin, used Novichok in Salisbury in March 2018 continues to collapse. A secret chemical warfare agent revealed last week that two  tests for Novichok, using special machines provided by the Porton Down chemical warfare laboratory,  failed to confirm […]

by Editor - Tuesday, November 5th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with For more than two months now, President Vladimir Putin’s orders to the General Staff have been to shorten the range of the electric war campaign to the area east of Kiev and the Dnieper River,  and west of the advancing line of Russian forces. The General Staff have responded by limiting […]

by Editor - Tuesday, November 5th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with It’s a pity when a 760-page history of the Russian leadership’s thinking during the Cold War period, 1945 to 2022, earns consignment to the  waste bin within the first nineteen pages, and in just three sentences. This ratio of toxicity to prolixity – 1 to 40 — is exceptional, although the […]

by Editor - Tuesday, November 5th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The British Government was exposed in the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry this week as keeping Sergei and Yulia Skripal (lead image) unconscious to silence them. That was six years ago, when they were in Salisbury District Hospital in March 2018. Now, prevented from testifying in public at the public inquiry under way […]

by Editor - Saturday, November 2nd, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Ragpicking is a serious women’s business, extracting value from rubbish. Cheerleading is the unserious business of girls waving pompoms at football games. There are those who claim the Kazan Declaration is today’s equivalent of the Bretton Woods Final Act (1944) and Bandung Declaration (1955),  or “a huge manifesto”,    or “victory for […]

by Editor - Saturday, October 26th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The British Government’s investigation of the alleged Novichok attacks against Sergei and Yulia Skripal, which they survived, and Dawn Sturgess, who died, has now run for six and half years. The public presentation of evidence and witnesses has completed its first week; the second week of hearings will begin next Monday, […]

by Editor - Friday, October 25th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with A two-month delay in Russian missile strikes against Ukrainian electricity infrastructure west of the Dnieper River and  secret talks on end-of-war terms by the Kremlin go-between Vladimir Medinsky (lead image, right) produced two signals from Kiev on Monday – one an offer by Vladimir Zelensky to reciprocate with a limit on […]

by Editor - Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was murdered on October 20, 2011, and to mark the thirteenth anniversary of his death, the Russian Foreign Ministry received Qaddafi’s daughter, Aisha Qaddafi, in Moscow on Friday. This is the first open meeting in Russia between high-ranking Russian officials and the Qaddafi family. The political […]

by Editor - Sunday, October 20th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with “The winners of the war are the Russian General Staff. Everyone in Russia understands that the Russian Army is winning and will win this war…I believe Gilbert is wrong on the history of the negotiations that have gone on since before this war began… It’s [Russian] military protection that guarantees [Ukrainian] […]

by Editor - Thursday, October 17th, 2024
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with According to the Russian Constitution amendments adopted in 2020,  Vladimir Putin can run for re-election in 2030 and win another term until 2036, when he will be 84. The contest over the presidential succession may thus be postponed for another decade. Or else it is under way already. That’s one of […]

by Editor - Tuesday, October 15th, 2024
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