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Dances with Bears
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[l] at 3/24/25 2:58am
byJohn Helmer, Moscow @bears_with The snowdrops have already come through the snow. The grape hyacinths are flowering in their place. By the time the bluebells appear, I shall be back at my desk.

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/23/25 11:42pm
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In Hollywood as in Bollywood, filmmakers and the executive directors representing the production financiers know that the money shot is the climactic moment in the shooting script which is put there to excite the audience, and to persuade the investors there’s money to be made. In porno films, the money shot []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/21/25 10:41am
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with “Dont you ever let me hear this again, or Ill lose my temper.” That was Lucky Luciano’s (lead image, left) ultimatum to Vito Genovese (right) in 1946 when Luciano was in Havana, Cuba,  organizing his business comeback in the US, as Genovese tried persuading him to delegate the operations to himself. “Right []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/19/25 11:18pm
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In the very first Pentagon press briefing of the Trump Administration, held this past Tuesday, Air Force Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich, who directs US military operations on the Ukraine battlefield and in Yemen, announced:  “President Trump and Secretary Hegseth,  they understand that when America gets involved in a fight, its our []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/19/25 6:17am
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with At the beginning of this month, Bild, the German media sensationalist, claimed to have discovered “incredible developments between [Presidents] Trump and Putin. And they affect Germany! Bild research reveals secret talks between the US and Russia in Switzerland. Its about an explosive gas deal for Germany! At the centre of the affair: once []

[Category: Oil & Gas, US-Russia]

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[l] at 3/18/25 1:40pm
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with President Vladimir Putin has solved the problem of how to conduct telephone calls with Donald Trump’s personality cult. Following Trump’s tweeted claim in the early morning of Tuesday that “many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to”  the telephone call which took place over two hours  of the early []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/18/25 1:03am
by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with NATO infantry operations veteran Major (retd) Mark Takacs (lead image) has published an animated map analysis of the battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces around Sudzha, in the Kursk region, between March 5 and 14. Nothing comparable has been reported by the Russian military bloggers; their US copyists; or the Ukrainian and []

[Category: Ukraine, US-Russia]

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[l] at 3/18/25 1:03am
by Jean-Marc Bovy, Geneva  @bears_with NATO infantry operations veteran Major (retd) Mark Takacs (lead image) has published an animated map analysis of the battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces around Sudzha, in the Kursk region, between March 5 and 14. Nothing comparable has been reported by the Russian military bloggers; their US copyists; or the Ukrainian and []

[Category: Ukraine, US-Russia]

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[l] at 3/16/25 11:08pm
by Jean-Marc Bovy, Geneva  @bears_with Do you remember Sergei Skripal, that double agent poisoned in Great Britain, they said, by the Russian secret services? What has become of them, Sergei and his daughter Yulia, since they survived one of the most violent poisons that there are?  Why dont we see them any longer? And there are other troublesome questions which only a great adventurer of investigating in troubled waters could tackle. John Helmer, Australian citizen, has been an independent press correspondent in Moscow for almost thirty years. Returned []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/14/25 12:15am
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In this discussion on Thursday morning, Chennai time, two leading Indian military analysts, Lieutenant General (retd) Ravi Shankar and Brigadier (retd) Arun Saghal,  explain that the 30-day ceasefire which the Americans and British have proposed for the Ukraine battlefield should follow as one of the outcomes of the  end-of-war negotiations, and not []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/13/25 11:47am
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with “As for the situation in Syria,”, the spokesman for President Vladimir Putin announced on Monday, “violence is taking place there, which cannot but cause our deep concern. This concern is shared in many countries of the world, in international organizations, including the United Nations.” On Tuesday, he added that “Russia supports []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/13/25 12:54am
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with There are four outcomes to beware in this game for players, and for kibitzers also. The first is the Observer Effect. This is when the observer gets so close to the target, the target itself is rattled, loses visibility, acts unpredictably. Second is the Confusion Effect when the observer can’t tell []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/11/25 12:36am
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Last week I asked Lieutenant General (retired) P.R. Shankar to analyse India’s victorious war against Pakistan which in fourteen days, December 3-16, 1971, ended in the capitulation of the Pakistan Army and the creation of the new state of Bangladesh; and compare that with Russia’s Special Military Operation (SVO) against the []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/8/25 12:13am
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with President Donald Trump has asked President Vladimir Putin to assist him in arranging a grand Middle East peace deal. This, according to officials leaking to Bloomberg reporters, requires Iran to agree to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, and also “Iran’s support for its allied groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah in []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/8/25 12:13am
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with President Donald Trump has asked President Vladimir Putin to assist him in arranging a grand Middle East peace deal. This, according to officials leaking to Bloomberg reporters, requires Iran to agree to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, and also “Iran’s support for its allied groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah in []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/7/25 12:34am
by John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with Someone has convinced President Donald Trump of two simple ideas. The first is that because the US auto, aerospace, and artificial intelligence industries are heavily dependent for their supplies of lithium, titanium, and other rare earth minerals (REM) on two enemy states, China and Russia, they should be replaced as quickly []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/5/25 11:48pm
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with There is a bedrock of Russian public opinion on how the war in the Ukraine should end. There is also a bedrock of American public opinion on whether President Donald Trump is to be believed when he speaks of ending the war under the new American “Golden Dome” of peace with []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/4/25 11:47pm
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with How to make losing the war in the Ukraine look like a win – this is President Donald Trump’s purpose in presenting himself and his administration as in favour of peace and of cashback to the United States. If he succeeds, he won’t appear to be running away from the battlefield, []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/3/25 10:55pm
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In this unique discussion held yesterday, two senior Indian strategists spell out how they see the current European and US debate over how the Ukraine war may end. Indian Army Brigadier (retired) Arun Saghal is one of the leading intelligence analysts in India. With a PhD from Allahabad University, he was []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 3/3/25 12:23am
by John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with During the Oval Office meeting last Friday with Vladimir Zelensky, President Donald Trump said: “We gave you through this stupid president [Biden] $350 billion.” The day before, in Trump’s two press conferences with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on February 27, Trump repeated this number three times over: “And then []

[Category: DwB]

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[l] at 2/28/25 2:04pm
by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Several hours before Vladimir Zelensky arrived at the Oval Office, Nima Alkhorshid led the discussion of each of this week’s negotiations on the Ukraine war by President Donald Trump, and by the only brain in the room, Vice President JD Vance. Click for the hour-long podcast here.    Follow the entire []

[Category: DwB]

As of 4/3/25 3:49pm. Last new 3/24/25 5:06am.

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