by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

There is a bedrock of Russian public opinion on how the war in the Ukraine should end. 

There is also a bedrock of American public opinion on whether President Donald Trump is to be believed when he speaks of ending the war under the new American “Golden Dome” of peace with Russia. 

Between this rock and this hard place, there are the politics and the business of enlarging power and making money. According to Trump in his March 4 speech to Congress, he aims at “building the most powerful military of the future. As a first step, I am asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art golden dome missile defence shield to protect our homeland — all made in the U.S.A.”  

For “most powerful military of the future”, Trump means new hypersonic weapons for a first strike against Russian and Chinese nuclear forces. For his “golden dome”, Trump means first-strike capacity without fear of retaliation — without mutually assured destruction by the Russians and Chinese.  The word for this isn’t peace – it’s a new US arms race.

In the recent statement by Howard Lutnick, Trump’s long time business friend and now US Commerce Secretary, Trump’s strategy for ending the current war on the Ukrainian battlefield means a cash dividend payable on a ceasefire at the frozen line of contact; this peace with Russia means business with Russia. “The President,” said Lutnick, “is going to figure out what are the tools he can use on Russia, and what are the tools he can use on Ukraine.  Like any great mediator, he’s going to beat both sides down, to get them to the table…We’ve given three hundred billion dollars to the Ukraine. Is it difficult to see what side we’re on?  Gimme a break…Let’s go force Russia into a reasonable peace deal…Enough already.”  

Between the rock, the hard place, and the Golden Dome, there is plenty of hopeful, wishful thinking. This is understandable, especially at this time of Lent. It’s also religious faith. The Roman Catholic bishops of Europe have just issued their Lenten proclamation that “as Christians prepare to embark on the journey of Lent, a time of repentance and conversion leading to Easter, the feast of hope and new life, we continue to entrust Ukraine and Europe to our Lord Jesus Christ, through the intercession of Mary, the Queen of Peace.”

Because the bishops are as unconfident of Mary’s mediation and Christ’s intervention, as they are of Trump’s,  they say they are still for holy war against “Russia the aggressor”, and for British and French guns to enforce it. “Amid deepening geopolitical complexities and the unpredictability of actions taken by some members of the international community,” the bishops say, meaning the US and Trump, “we call on the European Union and its Member States to remain united in their commitment to supporting Ukraine and its people. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a blatant violation of international law… A comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine can only be achieved through negotiations. Any credible and sincere dialogue effort should be supported by continued strong transatlantic and global solidarity and it must involve the victim of the aggression: Ukraine. We firmly reject any attempts to distort the reality of this aggression. In order to be sustainable and just, a future peace accord must fully respect international law and be underpinned by effective security guarantees to prevent the conflict from re-erupting.”

Under their mitres, when the bishops are saying complexity, unpredictability, and distortion of reality, they are thinking Trump.

Reviving the crusade against the Russian infidels is also what the regimes of the UK and Europe want. But the public belief in this crusade is waning, especially in the UK, creating another rock-and-hard- place squeeze for Prime Minister Keir Starmer; his military, intelligence and other Deep State institutions; the City business lobby; and the British media. 

The Russian response is as sceptical of Trump as it is of the combination of Europe’s rulers and their bishops. 

In nationwide polling in the second half of January, the Levada Centre of Moscow reported the high level of support for President Vladimir Putin, is qualified by the conviction of the  majority of voters that the end of the war terms must not (repeat not) concede the return of the four new regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye. “Although there is talk of Russia’s interest in rare metals and other resources in the depths these provinces, in some industrial enterprises, etc., [public opinion is] not about the material side. Russian society is showing what Lenin called the’ national pride of the Great Russians’. The level of solidarity is very high…What would the majority want? They are for peace, but their peace plan is that it stops at the point when they can feel victory.”  

Listen to the new podcast here.

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by Editor - Wednesday, March 5th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

How to make losing the war in the Ukraine look like a win – this is President Donald Trump’s purpose in presenting himself and his administration as in favour of peace and of cashback to the United States. If he succeeds, he won’t appear to be running away from the battlefield, as the Ford Administration did in Saigon in April 1975, and the Biden Administration in Kabul in August 2021. 

This is a hustle – it is an attempt by a combination of threats and rewards to convert a political and military defeat into a ready money profit;  call the process peacemaking, Trump himself the peacemaker, and the outcome peace. 

Trump believes this will be easier to negotiate with President Vladimir Putin than the military terms for an end-of-war armistice, capitulation by the Ukrainian military, and demilitarization of what remains of Ukrainian territory. About these issues, no US official has had anything certain to say yet. A money-for-peace deal is also simpler to manage than the creation of a new mutual security architecture for Russia, Europe and NATO which was first proposed by the Russian Foreign Ministry in December 2021.  

“Lemme me tell ya wha’ the set-up was,” said Howard Lutnick, one of Trump’s chief hustlers and now US Commerce Secretary. Lutnick has explained that what the plan  is, and what has been and still is expected from Vladimir Zelensky in Kiev. “The President wants peace…Like any great mediator, he’s going to beat both sides down, to get them to the table…We’ve given three hundred billion dollars to the Ukraine. Is it difficult to see what side we’re on. Gimme a break…Let’s go force Russia into a reasonable peace deal….Enough already.”

With Dimitri Lascaris we discuss each of the elements of this hustle as it is being applied to French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and then turned into economic war against Canada.The podcast runs for an hour. We focus on Canada starting at Minute 33:50. Click to view and listen. The Youtube version is here.

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by Editor - Tuesday, March 4th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

In this unique discussion held yesterday, two senior Indian strategists spell out how they see the current European and US debate over how the Ukraine war may end.  

Indian Army Brigadier (retired) Arun Saghal is one of the leading intelligence analysts in India. With a PhD from Allahabad University, he was the founding Director of the Office of Net Assessment, a unit of the Indian Integrated Defence Staff for preparing long-term strategic analyses and forecasts. He has also served as a consultant to the National Security Council, the principal advisor to the Prime Ministry on military and security policy. Dr Saghal has also played leading roles in the Indian Centre for Strategic Studies and Simulation (Cs3) and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

Chaired by the Lieutenant General P.R. Shankar, retired from heading the Indian Army’s artillery forces, click to view and listen to the hour-long discussion. 

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by Editor - Tuesday, March 4th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

During the Oval Office meeting last Friday with Vladimir Zelensky, President Donald Trump said: “We gave you through this stupid president [Biden] $350 billion.”  

The day before, in Trump’s two press conferences with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on February 27, Trump repeated this number three times over: “And then if you look at the war, we’re in for $300 billion plus and they’re in for $100 billion, they get their money back and now we’ll get our money back also. But under Biden, you wouldn’t have done that.”  

“We don’t get the money back. Biden made a deal. He put in $350 billion and I thought it was a very unfair situation…And we didn’t have that honour under the Biden administration. He sent money or just sent money after money after money and never had any knowledge of ever seeing it back, maybe $300 billion to $350 billion. But under the breakthrough agreement, very unusual, which everyone said was difficult to get, but it’s really very good for Ukraine and very good for us. The American taxpayers will now effectively be reimbursed for the money and hundreds of billions of dollars poured in to helping Ukraine defend itself, which by and of itself is a very worthy thing to do. We’ve paid far more than any other country and, with most of our support, it’s been paid in military, the finest weapons anywhere in the world.”  

Three days earlier on February 24, Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron the same number: “The deal is being worked on where I think getting very close to getting an agreement where we get our money back over a period of time. But it also gives us something where I think it’s very beneficial to their economy, to them as a country. But we’re in for $350 billion…that’s a lot of money, a lot of lot of money invested and we had nothing, nothing to show for it and it was the Biden administration’s fault. The Europeans are in for about $100 billion and they do it in the form of a loan. And the Europeans have been great on this issue.”  

This was Trump’s opener with Macron in the Oval Office. He then repeated the same numbers twice at their afternoon press conference: “The United States has put up far more aid for Ukraine than any other nation, hundreds of billions of dollars. We’ve spent more than $300 billion and Europe has spent about $100. $100 billion, that’s a big difference and at some point, we should equalize, but hopefully we won’t have to worry about that…I mean we’re in there for about $350 billion. I think that’s a pretty big contribution.”  

Macron, Starmer and Zelensky knew Trump’s $350 billion number was the claim he was making because Trump had rehearsed and repeated it before. “The United States has given $350 billion,” Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), “because we had a stupid, incompetent president and administration, $350. But here’s worse, Europe gave it in the form of a loan, they get their money back…We give them billions of dollars and we gave them our military equipment, just tremendous numbers of billions of dollars’ worth of–billions and billions.”   

Macron, Starmer and Zelensky didn’t dare to differ or correct Trump, let alone tell him he was mistaken or faking.

The US Government audit record, however, shows, not only that Trump’s 350 number is twice larger than the actual number appropriated by Congress between 2022 and the present: that number is $182.78 billion. But Trump’s claim to have “given”, “spent”, or “sent” 350 to the Ukraine is more than four times the number which has been actually disbursed: this number is just $83.43 billion. 

Trump’s number conceals a repeated lie that Trump’s Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury, his Director of National Intelligence, his Budget Director, and his National Security Advisor all know to be a lie, as do Macron, Starmer and Zelensky. This is the number which the Special Inspector General (SIG) appointed by Congress to investigate, audit and document where the money has gone, has just reported. 

In this new SIG report, published on February 11, 2025,  it is revealed that of the actual  appropriation of $182.784 billion, $44.85 billion (24.4%) has been programmed to pay for US ground forces, weapons, “procurement”,  and “operation and maintenance”, in Europe, outside the Ukraine, “to support the full range of costs associated with the increased U.S. military presence in Europe, both to support Ukraine and to provide enhanced deterrence in Eastern Europe.”

This money — the small print reveals — includes spending by the US military commands on propaganda and public deception operations. The official rationale is reported for the Army: “USEUCOM works to counter Russian disinformation in Europe…[including] campaigns in Bulgaria, Georgia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina with the goal of disrupting Russia’s influence and improving allies’ and partners’ resilience to Russia’s malign activities…[and] to develop and manage online platforms that engage with the target audiences through docuseries, infotainment, social media commentary, and by leveraging third-party social media influencers.” Read more here.  

In addition, the Inspector-General’s report reveals that $45.78 billion (25.1%) has been allocated for “replenishment of DoD stocks”. This means repurchasing from US military contractors the weapons they have already been paid to deliver to the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and other Pentagon forces.   

Finally, another $33.21 billion (18.2%), tagged the “Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI)”, has been legislated for the programme, according to the SIG report, “through which State procures, and the DoD delivers weapons, materiel, services, and training requested by partners and allies.” This has been the scheme to pressure European and other US allies to send their existing Russian or Soviet-made arms inventories to Kiev, and replace them with US weapons, creating thereby  “opportunities to transition some countries to U.S. rather than Russian military equipment.” 

In other words, $123.84 billion, or more than two-thirds (68%) of the US aid programme for the Ukraine war, is planned to go to the US arms industry.  The American word for this is a hustle. Lawyers call it extortion and fraud.

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by Editor - Monday, March 3rd, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

Several hours before Vladimir Zelensky arrived at the Oval Office, Nima Alkhorshid led the discussion of each of this week’s negotiations on the Ukraine war by President Donald Trump,  and by the only brain in the room, Vice President JD Vance.

Click for the hour-long podcast here.   

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by Editor - Friday, February 28th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

In public, in front of the press, the plan of President Donald Trump on Thursday was to give British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer short shrift.  Starmer made it shorter. 

TRUMP: “You’ve been terrific in our discussions. You are a very tough negotiator, however, and I’m not sure I like that, but that’s okay.”

STARMER: “Heh, heh, heh.”

Trump’s “attitude toward the Russian leader could hardly be more different from the British leader sitting inches away in the Oval Office,” reported the New York Times.

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by Editor - Thursday, February 27th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

Shortly there will be a new summit meeting in India between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin.

Just how shortly isn’t decided. India press reports claim the meeting will take place in March. The latest Russian Foreign Ministry statement indicates that preparations are under way for “the planned Russian-Indian summit to be held this year.”  

Last week, on February 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, for the two officials to brief each other on the Russian meetings with the US in Riyadh two days earlier;    and Modi’s meetings with President Donald Trump and other US officials in Washington on February 14.  

A well-informed Indian source believes that Modi and Jaishankar are downplaying the Indian role as a peacemaker between Russia and the US so as “not to step on Trump’s ego. Modi told Trump that he supports peacemaking efforts by him. At the same time, Modi does not want to again earn the wrath of Europeans and he has no intention of ruining his relationship with [French President Emmanuel] Macron or others in Europe. The Indians have no intention of falling on a Russian sword. The most sensible thing to do is to distance themselves from all this drama in Washington, Paris, Brussels, and Moscow.”

In Chennai (Madras) Lieutenant General (retired) Palepu Ravi Shankar is a leading analyst of India’s strategic options and opportunities in the present conflicts between Russia and the US, and between the US and China. He publishes his analyses in podcasts and papers on his website, Gunners Shot.  

This week General Shankar and I discussed the Ukraine war and the current end-of-war debates from the Russian and the Indian perspectives. For the hour-long podcast, click to listen.

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by Editor - Thursday, February 27th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

It’s called the selfish herd reflex.

In experiments with minnows, biologists have discovered that after removing the brain of a single minnow and dropping him back into the water, the brainless fish will move erratically, unable to sense the direction of his shoal, but drawing the other minnows to follow him instead.   The reason for this, ichthy neurologists believe, is that individual minnows are safer from predatory fish attacks if they stick together in large shoals.   The herd reflex is dominant because it’s protective; the brainlessness of the leader doesn’t matter.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have realized that in their war with Russia, they are safer to follow President Donald Trump, whether he has a  brain or not.

Macron demonstrated this realization in the Oval Office on Monday by reassuring hand and leg gestures with Trump, guiding him in the direction of French warfighting strategy while Trump made remarks which appeared to mean the opposite.  Macron also realized that whatever Trump says will be corrected, contradicted, then countermanded by the officials he has appointed for their loyalty in following him.

Trump can sense loyalty, but because he cannot read words, he does not understand that the text of the $390 billion payback minerals agreement with the Ukraine he voiced repeatedly in front of Macron has now disappeared on the paper his officials have agreed with the Ukraine

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by Editor - Thursday, February 27th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

On December 17, 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry proposed two treaties of non-aggression and mutual assured security to stop the US and NATO alliance’s road to war against Russia.

This was the draft pact with the US; this was the draft pact with NATO.  This is how to read them.  

When the treaty provisions were summarily dismissed without discussion by the Biden Administration of the time and its NATO allies, the Russian special military operation against the US and NATO in the Ukraine was inevitable.  It began sixty-nine days later.

Article 4 of the proposed treaty with NATO appeared to require the alliance to withdraw its territorial reach eastwards towards Russia to its borders at the cutoff date of May 27, 1997. “The Russian Federation and all the Parties that were member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as of 27 May 1997, respectively, shall not deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other States in Europe in addition to the forces stationed on that territory as of 27 May 1997. With the consent of all the Parties such deployments can take place in exceptional cases to eliminate a threat to security of one or more Parties.”  

This appeared to mean that Russia was insisting NATO withdraw to its borders of May 27, 1997. In practice, unless Moscow agreed in “exceptional cases”, this excluded the NATO members who have joined up since then — Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); Montenegro (2017); and North Macedonia (2020).  

Article 6 of the pact added the undertaking, as of the end of 2021: “All member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States.”  Since then Finland joined NATO in 2022;    Sweden followed in 2023.  

The two draft treaties remain the Foreign Ministry’s, the General Staff’s, and President Vladimir Putin’s roadmap for the peace settlement with the US and NATO to follow the end-of-war armistice in the Ukraine. This has been repeated many times over.

On Monday this week, President Donald Trump and President Emmanuel Macron discussed a framework for what they called peace in Europe. This, they told the press,   involved US military “backing” (Trump’s term) for a European “assurance force” (Macron’s term) deployed on Ukrainian territory in what the Russians are calling a demilitarized zone and the Europeans, a  disengagement zone. Macron told Trump that British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer would confirm his backing when he meets Trump on Thursday.

The Financial Times, a Japanese-owned propaganda organ in London, attempted to change the meaning of the obvious. It reported a single anonymous “French official” to say “there was ‘no definitive agreement’ on the nature of US back-up in Ukraine given the discussions were at a preliminary stage.” The newspaper also recruited a retired French diplomat to add that Macron “did make progress on that front even if Trump remained quite elusive.”  

Russian officials have repeatedly rejected the presence in these new Ukrainian zones of troops from the countries which have fought Russia on the battlefield since 2022. But the Russians also say that a compromise may be negotiable between the Russian framework of December 17, 2021, and the present positions of the Russian Army advancing towards the Dnieper River and of the US and NATO war staffs retreating to Lvov and Rzeszów, in Poland.

An essay by Yevgeny Krutikov, published this week in Vzglyad,  the Kremlin-funded security analysis platform, suggests senior officials at the Security Council believe in the possibility of arms withdrawal from the current battlefield and of military deconfliction with Russia  – without attempting the impossible, the dismantling of the NATO membership to the 1997 cutoff.

At its simplest, this would mean the withdrawal of American troops, long-range missiles and nuclear ordnance (bombs, missile warheads, targeting systems) to the lines of 1997. This would leave in place NATO security guarantees for the post-1997 member states and their territories, combined with Russian non-aggression guarantees.  

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by Editor - Tuesday, February 25th, 2025
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by John Helmer, Moscow 
  @bears_with

Compos mentis was missing in the Oval Office on Monday morning. French President Emmanuel Macron recognized it, and was so pleased, he repeatedly said: “Thank you, dear Donald”.

The answers to press questions given by President Donald Trump, sitting beside Macron, revealed that Trump doesn’t understand what end-of-war terms President Vladimir Putin has announced, nor the substance of the conversations, back channel and front in Riyadh, which have been going on between the Russians and Trump’s representatives. 

In the 28-minute morning presser, Trump spoke in repeated slogans except for a handful of new briefing points he was given by his staff:  the President stressed he has no points of difference with the French, the other Europeans, or NATO on how to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war. “There was great unity in that room”, Trump claimed of the first round of meetings with the Macron delegation, which included a videolink to other G7 leaders. 

“Take back some of the land”, Trump then claimed after being asked what end-of-war terms in the Ukraine he has discussed with Macron. “We’ll see if we get some land back”, Trump  repeated.  

Asked if he planned to go to Moscow on May 9, Trump revealed he does not know the significance of the May 9 celebration in Russia. “If this all gets settled out, sure I would go, and he could come here, too. I don’t know Ninth of May, no – I, err, that’s pretty soon. At the appropriate time I would go to Moscow…Within weeks. I think we could end it within weeks if we’re smart. If we’re not smart, it’ll keep going…”  Trump revealed, however, that he has given up his effort to hold a summit meeting with Putin without preparatory agreement of terms for an end of the Ukraine war.  

In the Oval Office, and in a simultaneous social media post, Trump repeated his interest in getting “payback” for US war spending in the Ukraine by negotiating a “rare earths” agreement.  “I emphasized”, the media post said, “the importance of the vital ‘Critical Minerals and Rare-Earths Deal’ between the United States and Ukraine, which we hope will be signed very soon! This deal, which is an ‘Economic Partnership’, will ensure the American people recoup the Tens of Billions of Dollars and Military Equipment sent to Ukraine, while also helping Ukraine’s economy grow as this Brutal and Savage War comes to an end. At the same time, I am in serious discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia concerning the ending of the War, and also major Economic Development transactions which will take place between the United States and Russia. Talks are proceeding very well!”  

In repeating to Macron his preoccupation with “rare earths”, Trump revealed in the Oval Office that he has no idea of the geography of the minerals he is negotiating to take over, so that “we get our money back over a period of time. But it is also beneficial to their economy, to them as a country.” Trump does not comprehend that the minerals — “rare earths and other things”, he called them — are mostly located, no longer in Ukraine but in the four new provinces of Russia and on the seabed off Russian Crimea. 

Trump also revealed he has no idea of how his proposed US investment in the minerals would be protected and by whom. 

Reporters pressed to see if the minerals agreement is subterfuge for a US security pledge to the Kiev regime, substituting for NATO membership.  Asked explicitly if the minerals deal will engage a US security guarantee for the Ukraine, Trump answered: “Well, uhh, it’ll be — Europe is going to make sure nothing happens. I don’t think it’s going to be much of a problem. I think once we settle, ahhh, there’s going to be no more war in Ukraine. You’re not go – uhhh, it’s not going to be a very big problem. That’s going to be the least of it.”

Several hours later, when the French president was asked at the second press conference after the talks had concluded, Macron hinted at a division and combination of military “deterrence capacity” between European and US forces which, he said, is a “turning point in my view, and one of the great areas of progress we have made during this trip.” Trump was uncomprehending; he did not remember what Macron had been saying over lunch. 

From evidence in Moscow of talks on Trump’s priority “major Economic Development transactions”, Putin has promoted his negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev,  to ministerial rank with the title “Special Representative of the President of Russia for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries.”  The text of the decree was signed on Sunday evening.  

The Kremlin was asked if Dmitriev has been promoted to ministerial rank, and if in future negotiations with the Americans he will be equal in precedence with Foreign Minister Lavrov and Presidential Assistant Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin spokesman said: “I don’t know.”

Dmitriev was talkative in Riyadh on February 18 on the prospects for the return to Russia of US businesses, product brand-names, and investors. But on the US agreement with Kiev for takeover of coal, iron ore, oil, gas and other resources in Novorossiya and the Crimea, Dmitriev has been silent.Late on Monday evening at his country residence, Putin called in a reporter to respond to the Oval Office record. “We would be ready to offer [cooperation] and our American partners, when I say partners, I mean not only administrative and government structures, but also companies – if they showed interest in working together… We would be happy to work with any foreign partners, including those of American ones. Yes, by the way, as for the new territories, the same thing: we are ready to attract foreign partners, and the so-called new our historical territories, who have returned to the Russian Federation, there are also reserves certain. We are ready with our foreign partners, including with American ones, work there too.” 

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by Editor - Monday, February 24th, 2025
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