by Editor - Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015
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On August 24, 1991, Marshal Sergei Fyodorovich Akhromeyev committed suicide. He had returned from his holiday at Sochi responding to the attempted removal of Mikhail Gorbachev from power. According to the reports of the time, he hanged himself in his Kremlin office, leaving behind a note. One version of what it said was: “I cannot […]

by Editor - Sunday, August 23rd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has taken sides in the homicide trial of Nadia Savchenko, a Ukrainian military volunteer who is standing trial in Russia for the murder last year of two Russian journalists reporting on the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Jerome Vacher, the resident representative of the IMF in Kiev, […]

by Editor - Wednesday, August 5th, 2015
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It’s traditional at this time of year to rest, chew things over, do a little flossing of the teeth, and return sharper than ever.

by Editor - Monday, August 3rd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Leonid Lebedev (lead image) has been charged with stripping millions of dollars from TGK-2, the regional electricity utility he controls. Details of the lawsuit have been revealed this week in the files of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court in Tortola, British Virgin Islands (BVI). The 4-page court filing of June 24, […]

by Editor - Monday, August 3rd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The board of directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was unsure until the last minute on Friday that the Ukrainian government in Kiev would get their delayed loan instalment of $1.7 billion. The board and management were much swifter in erasing personal communications which the IMF representative in Kiev, Jerome […]

by Editor - Monday, August 3rd, 2015
Comments Off on THE IMF ERASES RECORD OF FACEBOOK INTIMACIES WITH UKRAINIAN FINANCE MINISTER NATALIE JARESKO

Comment by GB, London We used to fly the Zimbabwe roses (and some Zambian) to the Dutch auctions; about 100 tonnes a week on Boeing 747s. Ours were cut, trimmed and boxed, and we delivered them to Amsterdam very early in the morning so that they could make the auction at the flower market in […]

by Editor - Friday, July 31st, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Dutch auction, as it’s called in the wholesale flower trade of Europe, is a clever scheme which simulates competitive bidding while it hides premiums in the prices Dutch growers and traders rig for their flowers. To cut the cost of flowers you have to deadhead the Dutch. And that’s exactly […]

by Editor - Wednesday, July 29th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow It’s midsummer. Time for the oligarchs, even the insolvent ones, to go aboard their yachts, and set sail for the resorts of the Mediterranean. Oleg Deripaska’s Queen K is this week cruising in the eastern Aegean between the Greek islands and the Turkish coast. Andrei Melnichenko’s A is in the Gulf […]

by Editor - Monday, July 27th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow With three tweets Radoslaw Sikorski (lead image, right), the leading Russia-hater of Poland, and his wife, Anne Applebaum (left), a member of a Russia-hating think-tank in London called Legatum, acknowledged on Monday that they have been ousted from the very frontiers they claim to be threatened with Russian invasion; dismissed by […]

by Editor - Tuesday, July 21st, 2015
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