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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Between 11:30 Moscow time on Thursday and 14:00,  President Vladimir Putin spent two and a half hours talking with the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with interpreters present but no one else, and including lunch and toilet breaks. The two presidents then spent three hours and twenty minutes in talks with […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with A new document, leaked from the files of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in The Netherlands,  reveals that Dutch prosecutors told the Australian, Belgian and Ukrainian representatives on the team, that the US Government had not presented any satellite evidence of a BUK missile firing at Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. The […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Everything, including artillery fire, infantry movements, launch of drones, rockets and refugees,  even losses of territory and men, is planned by three Turks – President Tayyip Recep Erdogan (lead images);  Defence Minister and former head of the Turkish General Staff, Hulusi Akar;   and Hakan Fidan, head of the National Intelligence Organization […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with It is exactly two years since the case of two Russians, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, began with their collapse on a park bench in the middle of England on the afternoon of March 4, 2018. On their anniversary it is necessary to tell this story. But it isn’t the story of […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The High Court in London has the duty to set the standard for distinguishing between Russian honesty and chicanery (the British varieties too). But it lacks the power. If the court had that, the Prime Minister, the House of Commons, the Secret Intelligence Service, the BBC, Oxford University Press, and the […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Heir apparent, or accounting app. In the politics of the Russian succession, Alexei Kudrin, 59 years of age, has two distinctions. The first is that he is hated by the General Staff, Igor Sechin, and a large number of Russian voters. The second is that he is loved by the US […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister appointed by President Vladimir Putin on the evening of January 15, would be disqualified from holding office when the new eligibility rule which Putin proposed earlier that day becomes law. This is because Mishustin’s mother is reported to be of Armenian nationality, and under Armenian law […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The first independent national opinion poll to measure Russian interpretations of President Vladimir Putin’s proposals for changing the Constitution has been reported by the Levada Centre in Moscow.   The results show a sharp decline in Russian confidence that the Constitution protects their rights and freedoms. On the meaning of Putin’s proposals […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The English read detective stories for the pleasure of unravelling the crime,  proving that even if there are perfect crimes, in the majority of cases the perpetrators don’t get away with them because the detectives are usually cleverer. That’s fiction. In real life,  Russian crimes are different. In the majority of […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with The Wiltshire Police and Police Commissioner Angus Macpherson have revealed new lawlessness in their investigation of the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury on March 4, 2018.