By John Helmer, Moscow For the first time Alrosa, the state-owned diamond miner, has come out in public and said it wants to buy Grib, the only commercially developed Russian diamond mine owned by LUKoil and its chief executive, Vagit Alekperov. Why it should say so now, when earlier announcements by Alrosa have veiled the […]

Filed under: Diamonds by John Helmer - Tuesday, December 10th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow Arkhangelskgeoldobycha (AGD), the LUKoil diamond-mining subsidiary, has made its first detailed presentation of the new mine it is building in Arkhangelsk, with confirmation of the new mine’s diamond grades, volume of production, and financial value. The Grib mine, named after the Russian geologist who first found the deposit, is the first […]

Filed under: Diamonds by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 15th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow Russian oil company LUKoil plans to launch commercial production of diamonds at its Grib diamond mine in September, the company confirms. It is the first diamond mine to be opened in Russia since Alrosa, the state diamond miner, commissioned the Nyurba mine in Sakha in 2003. Alrosa’s Lomonosov diamond mine, less […]

Filed under: Diamonds, Oil & Gas by John Helmer - Thursday, January 24th, 2013
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By John Helmer in Moscow No sooner had De Beers and Archangel Diamond Corporation (ADC) revived last Friday, September 4, their US litigation plan of attack against LUKoil and its senior management, headed by Vagit Alekperov, than Alekperov issued an unprecedented statement saying he is thinking of selling out of diamonds altogether. Until now,Alekperov has […]

Filed under: Diamonds by John Helmer - Monday, September 7th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow De Beers’s arsenal resists Usmanov attack on the Grib pipe and the Arsenal pitch. A public relations blitz under way this month in London and the UK media has produced charges and counter-charges involving Alisher Usmanov, an iron-ore and steel magnate. He is accused of conspiring with other Russians to […]

Filed under: Diamonds by John Helmer - Sunday, October 21st, 2007
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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with President Donald Trump was told last week by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte that the Russian people are losing their confidence in President Vladimir Putin and in the war in the Ukraine because they are having to wait in line at their petrol stations; because their airport flights can be delayed for […]

Filed under: DwB by Editor - Sunday, October 26th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with On January 17, when the Presidents of Russia and Iran, Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian,  signed the Treaty on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation,  they were standing at the front of a line of Russian and Iranian (Persian) tsars, shahs, generals, ministers, […]

Filed under: DwB by Editor - Tuesday, February 4th, 2025
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Belgium has decided to host its second Battle of Waterloo in two hundred and eight years, this time on Napoleon’s side. But on this occasion it won’t be, as the Duke of Wellington claimed before, a “close run thing”. In the last episode  of the Napoleon-sized mistakes the US and […]

Filed under: DwB by Editor - Sunday, September 24th, 2023
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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Everyone who has ever heard rice go snap, crackle, and pop! knows that eating the grain is good for your energy. At the front, Russian soldiers are eating more rice, on per capita average, than any other soldier in Europe, twice as much as the Ukrainian troops. And the rice the […]

Filed under: DwB by Editor - Wednesday, April 5th, 2023
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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with “We have overcome the situation when certain powers in the government were essentially usurped by oligarch clans,” President Vladimir Putin told the Federal Assembly last week. About  the overcoming part, his staff aren’t so sure. The week before, when asked to identify the guest list at Putin’s annual Christmas reception for […]

Filed under: DwB, Oligarchs by Editor - Monday, January 20th, 2020
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