by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (lead image) surprised his own country’s lawyers last week with the filing of a Dutch Government claim against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights for the shooting-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. “The Dutch government decided”, declared the official announcement,    “to bring Russia before […]

by Editor - Monday, July 13th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with It’s an old tsarist ploy. When government officials grow fearful of public protests, attacks on the authorities, and rioting, they increase the volume of alcohol for sale but decrease the number of places where drinkers can gather in public. Vodka is the opium of the people: this has been the Russian […]

by Editor - Monday, July 13th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with It was the 412th of Francois de la Rochefoucauld’s maxims that doesn’t stand the test of either time or money. “Whatever degree of disgrace we may have brought upon ourselves,” he said, “it is always within our power to re-establish our reputation.” For years Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven, the controllers of […]

by Editor - Thursday, July 9th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Pavel Volchkov is an exceptional voice among the Russian scientists now dealing with the corona virus (Covid-19) pandemic. The current Covid-19 policy administrators in Moscow are of the same academic generation but they have trained as doctors;  Volchkov is a geneticist. They have spent their formative careers inside Russian institutions;  Volchkov spent […]

by Editor - Tuesday, July 7th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The ruling issued on July 3 by Dutch district court judge Hendrik Steenhuis (lead image, right) requires the Russian defendant, Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Pulatov (centre), to prove his innocence with evidence prepared by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). By the standard announced a month earlier by the Russian Foreign Ministry, this is […]

by Editor - Sunday, July 5th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The presiding judge in the trial of the shooting-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 announced on Friday afternoon that he will not allow the evidence of Major-General Igor Konashenkov and other Russian Defence Ministry officers on the Ukrainian Army’s possession of the BUK missile alleged to be the weapon which shot […]

by Editor - Friday, July 3rd, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with The plot to rid the British Government of the man who combined more domestic and foreign policy-making powers than any British official in peacetime was not a clandestine Kremlin operation directed by President Vladimir Putin. But the sacking of Sir Mark Sedwill, the grammar school head-boy who became Cabinet Secretary and […]

by Editor - Tuesday, June 30th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Nothing like this has been said before by a leader of the Hellenes, Greek or Cypriot. “If we consider a solution through militarisation,” Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades (lead image, right) announced last week. “This will be the end of Cypriot Hellenism, which I do not want.”  What Anastasiades meant was that […]

by Editor - Monday, June 29th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Dutch state prosecutors told the court in the trial of the shooting-down of Malaysia Airlines MH17 that Major-General of the Russian Army Igor Konashenkov should not be allowed as a witness for the defence. To justify this in a hearing last Friday, the prosecutors revealed an illegal trick exposing the evidence […]

by Editor - Sunday, June 28th, 2020
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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with One of the most prominent generals in the Russian Army is to be called to testify in the Dutch government’s trial of the shooting-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 when district court judge Hendrik Steenhuis rules next week on whether to accept or refuse his evidence as a  witness for the […]

by Editor - Wednesday, June 24th, 2020
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