by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Even as the British Empire was collapsing, and its army was defeated by the Germans,  Japanese, Israelis, Egyptians, Indians, Cypriots, and the Kenyan Mau Mau, British intelligence officers were unshaken in their confidence that they were cleverer than their adversaries;   their espionage and deception operations an uninterrupted success  despite the loss […]

by Editor - Tuesday, December 8th, 2020
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By Liane Theuerkauf, Munich   @bears_with Last month Germany’s  Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) headed by Bruno Kahl (lead image) joined with the Chancellery and other ministries in Berlin to provide the first official catalogue of the German government’s allegations in the case of Alexei Navalny. This was published on November 19.  Press reporting in Germany has been […]

by Editor - Monday, December 7th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The German Government has revealed to the German parliament that it had decided Alexei Navalny (lead image, left) had been the victim of a crime within minutes of his collapse on board a flight between Tomsk and Moscow on August 20. That was before Navalny’s staff in Tomsk had begun filming […]

by Editor - Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Yulia Skripal (lead image) has telephoned home to say that she and her father, Sergei Skripal, are alive and well in the UK; living in separate rented accommodations;  paying for them with the pension her father gets from MI6; getting plenty of exercise on a treadmill and nature walks; keeping her […]

by Editor - Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with It requires unusual degrees of self-confidence, political power, and lawlessness for the generals commanding the winning side in war to hold themselves innocent of the killing which the troops under their command committed against the losing side or suspected sympathisers.    In Washington, in February of 1946, Associate Justice of the […]

by Editor - Monday, November 30th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Grief for his loss has prevented me from writing about Krissy (Kris, Kriska, Krisichka, Kiryusha from КРЫСА meaning “rat”). He is the cat to whom I belonged who died at our home in Moscow nine years ago, on December 9, 2011. The efforts of a Russian oligarch to kill me, and then, […]

by Editor - Sunday, November 29th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In the November 25 session of the MH17 trial at Schiphol – the final one for this year —  presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis  ruled to accept only those investigations requested by the defence lawyers which are certain to incriminate Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Pulatov. Pulatov is the only one of the four accused to […]

by Editor - Wednesday, November 25th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Vladimir Putin liked to call the White House officials he met in mid-1999 by their first names,  except for Strobe Talbott of the State Department whom he called Mister Talbott.   That was when Putin was Secretary of the Security Council, and his direct US counterpart was the White House National […]

by Editor - Monday, November 23rd, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with All that glisters isn’t gold. But as all Russian goldminers know, when it comes to the reputation of the mining company, its chief executive,  and its share price, glister will do just as well. That has been the view of Suleiman Kerimov (lead image, right) whose Polyus is Russia’s most important […]

by Editor - Sunday, November 22nd, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Vkusville sounds half Russian, half French. Piquant, you might say – пикантный. The name can be translated into English as Taste Town. But for the name of a new chain of food stores this sounds so hackneyed that in your average American or British town you would expect to find there […]

by Editor - Thursday, November 12th, 2020
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