By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Born with a large Russia-hating chip on his shoulder, Cai-Göran Alexander Stubb has been the ideal US Government recruit to be president of Finland. And so, since March 1, 2024, he is.

No one in Finnish politics has done as much as Stubb to cancel Finland’s post-war neutrality, drive the country into the NATO alliance, and establish US bases to escalate the war against Russia on the northern front.  Four weeks after taking power, Stubb announced his policy of deploying US forces, including missiles, drones, aircraft and heavy ground weapons at Finnish bases. “When American war materiel is placed on Finnish soil,” he said,  “it strengthens Finland’s defence.”  

In one of Stubb’s schemes, NATO’s regional Multi-Corps Land Component Command (MCLCC)  has been established and expanded at Mikkeli — 256 kilometres from St Petersburg as the missile flies – and subordinated to US command-and-control at Norfolk, Virginia.   US F-35As, newly purchased by the Finnish Air Force (FAF),     will be based at Rovaniemi airbase, 24 minutes’ flying time  from St. Petersburg; the air defences for the base will be led by the medium-range, Israel-supplied David’s Sling,  recently beaten by Iran. US-supplied rocket and artillery systems, such as the HIMARS,  which have been defeated by Russia in the Ukraine, are to be based at Rovajärvi,   where the US Air Force has been coordinating B-52 bomber operations this year.  Rovajärvi is within HIMARS shooting range of the Russian border bases in the Murmansk region, such as Alakurtti and Kamenka.  

Loaded on board the USAF B-52 and the F-35As of the FAF, Stubb is also trying to draw US nuclear weapons on to Finnish territory by ending the current Finnish law banning storage of US air-dropped nuclear bombs and nuclear missile warheads or moving them into firing position there. “We in Finland must have a real nuclear deterrent,” according to Stubb, “and that’s what we have, because NATO practically gives us three deterrences through our membership.”  For the time being, he is opposed on deployment in Finland of nuclear weapons by officials in the current coalition government.  

The outcome already, according to an analysis by a Moscow think tank, is the opening of a new warfighting front against Russia from Poland to Finland, with a surge of US weapons paid for by the Europeans but directed by US commanders. “The entire northern and north-eastern flanks of the [NATO] bloc will be subordinated to a single command centre, which will significantly increase their military and operational connectivity and create a potential unified theatre of operations from the Baltic to the Barents Sea… Once all Nordic defence initiatives are implemented, the United States will be able to unimpededly project its force right at the Russian border, posing a significant security threat to Russia.” 

On March 30, Stubb made an unscheduled trip   to play golf with President Donald Trump in Florida. “The presidents met over breakfast, played a round of golf and had lunch together,” Stubb’s office said no more at the time.  Trump tweeted: “I just played a round of Golf with Alexander Stubb, President of Finland. He is a very good player, and we won the Men’s Member-Guest Golf Tournament at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach County, with the Legendary Gary Player, Senator Lindsey Graham, and former Congressman and highly successful Television Host, Trey Gowdy…President Stubb told me, in the most powerful of words, that the United States is STRONG, and BACK, AGAIN. I AGREE!”  

Trump revealed that he and Stubb had made a deal for “strengthening the partnership between the United States and Finland, and that includes the purchase and development of a large number of badly needed Icebreakers for the U.S.”  The icebreaker deal is worth several billion Euros. “If confirmed,” the Helsinki press reported, “it would be a crucial shot in the arm for Finnish heavy industry, which has struggled to fill its order books.”  The Finnish vessel price is several times cheaper than  US shipbuilders propose to charge;  the standing US Coast Guard contract for one Polar Security Cutter (PSC) is $1.3 billion. Trump’s Stubb deal violates existing US law  and breaches the pact which the Biden Administration had signed with Canada and Finland on icebreakers on November 13, 2024.   

In matching payback, what Stubb promised to do for Trump’s friends and constituents like Elon Musk, is suspected to be lucrative in the billions of dollars, but remains secret. Not quite,  because Trump’s friends like to boast.

Why Stubb for US stooge? Russian sources answer.

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by Editor - Monday, June 2nd, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Tomorrow, Monday June 2, the second round of “direct” negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations will open with the exchange of term sheets, the Russian memorandum and what retired US Army General Keith Kellogg calls the twenty-two points which have been drafted by the US and FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine and Poland).

Speaking for President Donald Trump and the Europeans, Kellogg has announced  that he has read both term sheets, and that when the talks open in Istanbul,  the Ukrainian delegation will have behind them the national security advisors of the US, France, UK, and Germany. Kellogg believes both sides in the talks, the US-backed Ukrainians and the Russians, have fresh escalation capacities still to be used against each other. According to Kellogg, Trump is aiming to prevent President Vladimir Putin countering each one of the Ukrainian allies now arming their escalation, including – he added – Finland.

 “The reason I believe the US has to stay involved”, Kellogg said, “is because of escalation…You have an escalation ladder. You better know when to get off it. If you don’t get off, you’ve got a big problem.”

In this discussion of India’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan last month,  and Russia’s three-year Special Military Operation,  senior Indian military officers (retired), Lieutenant General Ravi Shankar and Brigadier Arun Saghal demonstrate how effective the Indian forces were in destroying Pakistan’s capability for escalation, and compelling the ceasefire Pakistan applied for.

Together, we discuss the Indian lessons and apply them to the next stage of Russia’s negotiations with all its adversaries on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Click for Sunday’s hour-long podcast.   

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by Editor - Sunday, June 1st, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

The first report came from RIA-Novosti, the Russian state news agency, on May 25 at 13:24.

“President Vladimir Putin’s helicopter (lead image, top) was in the epicentre of repelling a large-scale attack by Ukrainian Armed Forces drones during a visit to the Kursk region, said Yury Dashkin [Major General in command of the 32^nd Air Defence Division, lead image, below)  commander of the air defence division in whose area of responsibility the region is located. According to him, during the president’s visit, the Ukrainian military launched an ‘unprecedented attack,’ with 46 drones destroyed by the air defence system. ‘At the same time, we conducted an anti-aircraft battle and ensured the safety of the president’s helicopter flight in the air. [The helicopter was] actually in the epicentre of repelling a massive drone attack,’ Dashkin said.”  

The drone attack on Kursk had taken place five days earlier, on May 20. Putin’s visit to the region, his meetings with local officials, the region governor, engineers and scientists at the Kurchatov nuclear power plant, and local medical, rescue and social welfare volunteers was not reported by the Kremlin website until the following morning. The report of the attack on the helicopter was kept secret at the time. The Kremlin has made no comment on the later press reports.

Note Gen Dashkin’s precise wording: he did not claim the President’s helicopter was targeted directly; he did not say Putin was on board at the time (the President also travelled in Kursk by motorcade); he did not reveal whether there was more than one  helicopter in the presidential flight to Kursk;  he did not say whether the air defence command was spoofing the electronic tracking technology which the US and the Ukrainians have been using for their drone and missile attacks in recent days.

The Kremlin pool reporter for Kommersant, Andrei Kolesnikov, reported on Putin’s movements and meetings after the 24-hour security delay.   Kolesnikov noted in passing: “The situation was not cloudless: when the cortege of the president moved around the region, there were drones of the APU in the sky – they cannot be ignored on the video footage, which I saw. However, the region lives in such an environment not for the first year, as you know — so Vladimir Putin should have recognized how the region is working.”

Pick-up of the May 25 report by Newsweek of the US conceded: “This is the first known instance in which the Russian president is reported to have flown through an active drone attack.”     

The magazine then adopted the Ukrainian version of what had happened. “Ukrainian officials haven’t comment on the alleged attack on Putin, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country has every right to kill Putin if the opportunity arises, if doing so would protect Ukraine and its people. Zelensky told The Sun in Kyiv in November 2023 that he has lost track of the number of times Moscow has attempted to assassinate him since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of his country. ‘That’s war, and Ukraine has all the rights to defend our land,’ the Ukrainian leader said when asked if Kyiv would take a chance to assassinate Putin if such an opportunity arose.”     

“Zelensky is no longer in Kiev,” a Moscow source in a position to know commented this week. “He spends much of his time travelling around the world, and then in a command post in Poland. He simulates his presence in country for PR purposes. He only goes to Kiev when foreign government officials visit.”  In March 2022 Putin told former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett that he would not order an assassination strike on Zelensky.  

Five years later, has Zelensky make an attempt against Putin? what role are the US electronic warfare forces playing in tracking Putin’s movements and targeting his position? When Trump tweeted on May 27 that Putin is “playing with fire!”  had Trump fired first – and missed?

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by Editor - Sunday, June 1st, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

There is a risky way of being an American against the wars that President Donald Trump is aiming to fight, especially the one Trump claims not to be fighting against Russia on the Ukraine battlefield. The risk is that you may have to use words like imperialism, oligarchy, false consciousness, revolution.  

Trump is right about one thing – Americans don’t have to go to Harvard on state grants and minority quotas to learn about words like those.

One of the first great Americans to run that word risk, miss Harvard, and do more than sympathize with the Russian revolutionists of the late 19^th and early 20^th century was Clarence Darrow. He is also one of the first and still the most eloquent of examples of being an American against American wars which is almost unremembered today. “If this war be called patriotism,” Darrow said in 1898 about the US war to take the Philippines from Spain, “then blessed be treason”.  

Few enough words to make the tweet limit, but not rightfor endorsement in Truth Social. Too “WARPED RADICAL LEFT”.

Darrow (1857 -19384) was the greatest courtroom lawyer in American history, practising across the country in the defence of the oligarch-owned railroads and also union workers;  big city mayors; blacks framed for the murder of whites;  women who killed violent husbands;  Jewish thrill-homicidalists; and the McNamara brothers who on October 1, 1910, dynamited the Los Angeles Times, killing 21 and injuring more than 100. After that trial Darrow was prosecuted himself for bribing the jurors; in his two-day address to the jury he had them in tears; they acquitted him on the defence of moral necessity.

“The great question between capital and labour,” Darrow said in 1912, “cannot be solved by marching”. Nowadays that last word would be replaced by tweeting.

“Clarence Darrow is the greatest power for evil in the United States today!” declared the California state prosecutor in Trump style – it was March 1913 and Darrow was on trial on a second bribery charge. The jury deadlocked – eight for conviction, four for acquittal – and the judge declared a mistrial.  

In today’s podcast with Nima Alkhorshid and Ray McGovern, we discuss the Russian assessment of Trump’s tweets and the future sequencing of wars which Russians understand that Trump and his State Department and Pentagon are attempting – just as the Russians are sequencing their own war in the Ukraine and the future war against the Euro-Nazis led by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Click to view and to listen.  

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by Editor - Wednesday, May 28th, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Russian officials will ignore President Donald Trump’s tweets in order to focus on the main chance.

“We do not consider the infantile attitude of Trump as a problem,” an official source said, responding to Trump’s statement and tweets of May 26 and 27.

“We consider he is the legitimate counter party [for end-of-war negotiations]. We consider he is a more adequate person than any of the European and British leaders. He is far from the worst of the leadership in the western world, whether on the left or on the right. He is not [ex-Prime Minister Elizabeth] Truss not [Boris] Johnson. He is not [French President Emmanuel] Macron. He is a real leader and [President Vladimir Putin] has no hesitation to talk to him with trust.”

“There will be a summit meeting even if it is often now that Trump speaks the last words he hears from Macron or [Finnish President Alexander] Stubb. But this is not a problem. He has an independent mind and he conveyed his wish to end war with Russia. This is the foundation on which it is necessary to build. He is trusted on this wish he has expressed.”

The official refused to be drawn into discussing the escalation of Ukrainian drone and missile attacks, including Putin’s helicopter in Kursk, or the Russian retaliation raids on Kiev and around the country.  He did not touch on Putin’s decision “to create a buffer security zone along the Russian border. Our Armed Forces are working on this now. They are also effectively suppressing enemy firing points.”  

Asked whether it is now the Russian negotiating objective to secure four, five, or eight regions, the official replied: “Look, our position has changed continually about the regions.  No one went into this [the Special Military Operation] for land. We can stop where we want if our main, long-term objective is reached — demilitarization of all Ukraine and de-nazification. We have specific proposals on that. Very specific. So on these terms, land can be given for a peaceful treaty with the US on Ukraine. Only with US. Not with the Europeans. And the main discussions on security with the US then start with normal diplomatic and business relations at all levels. This is the minimum expectation and it will be met.”

The official passed over Trump’s latest tweet on Tuesday evening: “What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”   

The official responded: “We have changed our position that [Putin] will meet only on the conclusion of all the technical details. We are ready to meet at any stage of the technical Ukraine discussions. A meeting [with Trump] will happen.”

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by Editor - Wednesday, May 28th, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

Either President Donald Trump (lead image, bottom) cannot comprehend the sequence of cause and effect. Or he cannot control his own military and intelligence operations in the war against Russia. Or Trump thinks he can deceive President Vladimir Putin (lead image, top), authorize an attack on him personally, and later, when the attack failed, and  Putin retaliated with a counter-attack on Kiev, Trump is pretending  “I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin…he’s sending rockets into Kiev and other cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.”  

Trump then threatened Putin directly. “We’ll see what we’re going to do.”  

Follow the sequence and decide what’s cause, what’s effect.

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by Editor - Monday, May 26th, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

In their hour-long Oval Office meeting on May 22, President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked South African (SA) President Cyril Ramaphosa. This is the longest,  continuous face-to-face verbal assault on a foreign head of state in recent Trump history.

As the lead image shows, Ramaphosa and the state ministers sitting at his right are black. Trump, his Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are white. “It was a full-on ambush,” observes a black American source, “and an attempt to make the South African delegation, Ramaphosa in particular, look small.”

“In an extraordinary scene clearly orchestrated by the White House for maximum effect and reminiscent of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s US visit in February,” responded a former US Ambassador to South Africa (2013-2016)  Patrick Gaspard,    “Trump confronted Ramaphosa with false claims of genocide against SA whites, including allegations of mass killings and land seizures…Trump had turned the meeting with Ramaphosa into a shameful spectacle and savaged him with some fake snuff film and violent rhetoric. Engaging on Trump’s terms never goes well for anyone.”  

Gaspard added: “Bizarrely, Trump has cued some video of a political rally of a minor Party in SA  of Julius Malema and others going on about land seizures in South Africa as if that’s ‘evidence’ of a ‘genocide’. Just bizarre. And Cyril is doing all he can to maintain his composure and dignity.”  “Pretty extraordinary to see billionaire Johan Rupert pleading Trump for some deal for Elon Musk and Starlink to come ‘save’ South Africa. I think that this grift from Musk lies at the heart of this entire performance.”  

The Russian reaction came in the Kremlin-backed security analysis internet publication, Vzglyad. The writer is Yevgeny Krutikov, a former GRU field officer and Russian strategy analyst who is an expert on Russian policy in Africa; he is white and speaks Afrikaans.

“Ramaphosa is the exact opposite of Zelensky in terms of human qualities. He is smiling and funny… he has a wonderful sense of humour which gives him a charm that is unexpected.  This even affected Trump, who apparently counted on conflict in the conversation, while Ramaphosa constantly joked, laughed, and smiled even where it was difficult to do so; for example, on the issue of ‘genocide of whites’ and the murders of farmers…Apparently, this attitude was planned in advance by the South African delegation with all its Soviet experience of former underground fighters…the whole show ended in a draw… Cyril Ramaphosa really wants to bring South Africa onto the big political stage, including by participating in the negotiation process on Ukraine. For South Africa, his visit to Washington was not only an attempt to restore and reset economic relations with the United States, but also to establish himself as another source of diplomatic efforts. And, despite the elements of the show program, he succeeded. This is a very positive sign for Russia, as South Africa is not only our traditional partner and ally, but also another independent vector of power that Trump’s typical pressure failed to break.”  

Watch the Oval Office session posted by the White House here. It ended with Ramaphosa quipping to Trump about the press: “they like you so much.”  Read the full transcript.  

Read the analysis by Krutikov in yesterday’s edition of Vzglyad.   The Russian original has been translated verbatim into English without editing. Links, illustrations and captions have been added for clarification.

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by Editor - Friday, May 23rd, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

The war in the Ukraine is a sideshow for President Donald Trump because he is escalating his preparations for war against Russia on other fronts and concentrating his main forces against China on the ground, Russia in space.  This is Trump’s MEGA – Make the Empire Great Again.

This is also the reason he is signalling his readiness to make battlefield concessions to President Vladimir Putin which the European leaders are reluctant to accept.  Their reason for that is the enormous new cost in US arms which Trump is demanding they start to pay.

“It’s a pretty evil world out there,” Trump announced on May 20.  He was referring to Russian and   Chinese nuclear missile capabilities to strike the US. Reviving President Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” threat from Moscow, and his “Star Wars” space shield, Trump said he is going one better.

“We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland. The success rate is very close to 100 percent, which is incredible when you think of it, you’re shooting bullets out of the air…Now we’re number one in space by a lot. It’s not even close…I think you can rest assured there’ll be nothing like this. Nobody else is capable of building it either.”

Trump is repudiating Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine of strategic deterrence in practical effect between Washington and Moscow for more sixty years.  Trump’s new idea is not MAD; it’s LUNACY – Launch Under Nuclear Ascendance Confidence Yessiree.

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by Editor - Thursday, May 22nd, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

On Monday President Donald Trump telephoned President Vladimir Putin and they talked for two hours before Trump put lunch in his mouth and Putin his dinner.  

On the White House schedule, there was no advance notice of the call and no record afterwards. The White House log is blank for Trump’s entire morning while the press were told he was at lunch between 11:30 and 12:30.  

Putin went public first, making a statement to the press which the Kremlin posted at 19:55 Moscow time; it was then 12:55 in Washington. Click to read.   

Trump and his staff read the transcript and then composed Trump’s statement in a tweet posted at 13:33 Washington time, 20:33 Moscow time. Click to read.  

If Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Keith Kellogg, the president’s negotiator with the Ukraine and FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, Poland), were consulted during Trump’s prepping, sat in on the call with the President,  or were informed immediately after the call, they have remained silent.

The day before, May 18, Rubio announced that the Istanbul-II meeting had produced agreement “to exchange paper on ideas to get to a ceasefire.  If those papers have ideas on them that are realistic and rational, then I think we know we’ve made progress.  If those papers, on the other hand, have requirements in them that we know are unrealistic, then we’ll have a different assessment.”  Rubio was hinting that the Russian formula in Istanbul, negotiations-then-ceasefire, has been accepted by the US. What the US would do after its “assessment”, Rubio didn’t say – neither walk-away nor threat of new sanctions.

Vice President JD Vance wasn’t present at the call because he was flying home from Rome where he attended Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass. “We’re more than open to walking away,” Vance told reporters in his aeroplane. “The United States is not going to spin its wheels here. We want to see outcomes.”   Vance prompted Trump to mention the Pope as a mediator for a new round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, first to Putin and then in public.

Kellogg is refusing to go along.  He tweeted on Sunday: “In Istanbul @SecRubio  made it clear that we have presented ‘a strong peace plan’. Coming out of the London meetings we (US) came up with a comprehensive 22 point plan that is a framework for peace. The first point is a comprehensive cease fire that stops the killing now.”   

FUGUP issued their own statement after Trump’s call. “The US President and the European partners have agreed on the next steps. They agreed to closely coordinate the negotiation process and to seek another technical meeting. All sides reaffirmed their willingness to closely accompany Ukraine on the path to a ceasefire. The European participants announced that they would increase pressure on the Russian side through sanctions.”   

This signalled acceptance with Trump of the Russian formula, negotiations-then-ceasefire, and time to continue negotiating at the “technical” level. The sanction threat was added. But this statement was no longer FUGUP. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was omitted; so too Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The Italian, the Finn and the European Commission President were substituted. They make FUGIFEC.

Late in the Paris evening of Sunday French President Emmanuel Macron attempted to keep Starmer in Trump’s good books and preserve the ceasefire-first formula. “I spoke tonight,” Macron tweeted, “with @POTUS @Keir_Starmer @Bundeskanzler  and @GiorgiaMeloni  after our talks in Kyiv and Tirana. Tomorrow, President Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe.”    By the time on Monday that Macron realized he had been trumped, the Elysée had nothing to say.

By contrast, Italian Prime Minister Meloni signalled she was happy to line up with Trump and accept Putin’s negotiations-then-ceasefire. “Efforts are being made,” Meloni’s office announced,    “for an immediate start to negotiations between the parties that can lead as soon as possible to a ceasefire and create the conditions for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”  Meloni claimed she would assure that Pope Leo XIV would fall into line. “In this regard, the willingness of the Holy Father to host the talks in the Vatican was welcomed. Italy is ready to do its part to facilitate contacts and work for peace.” 

For the time being, Putin’s and Trump’s statements have put Rubio, Kellogg and the Europeans offside.   Decoding the two president’s statements shows how and why.

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by Editor - Tuesday, May 20th, 2025
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By John Helmer
  @bears_with

In Soviet days Russians were famous for not smiling, at least not in public. In private, smiling was strictly between consenting adults.

Now it is a marketing ploy of Sberbank — the state savings bank run by Yeltsin-era leftover, German Gref – to invite its customers to smile whenever they make payments. This  combines several bank profit-making lures in two formulas — spending is more to smile about than saving; borrowing money you don’t have to spend is even more to smile about.  

The bank is also selling facial recognition technology to reduce its cost of securing computer and smartphone transactions and cutting the compensation it must pay out for fraud.  About that, Gref’s advertisement for the smile-as-you-pay scheme shows a popular television actor who plays a fraudster who is smiling because he has reformed himself and is spending money he hasn’t stolen.   

So, are Russians happy because they are convinced their money is secure? Or are they smiling to con the bank that the money they are spending will not be paid back?

According to President Vladimir Putin a few days ago, telling Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina to smile at a business conference:  “Elvira Sakhipzadova, I’ll give you my word now. You see, smiles too, mean everything is all right. Everyone is smiling, everyone is in a good mood.”

Asking Russians if they feel happier these days, when the country is at war, is not as straightforward as several of the NATO warfighting countries may believe. This is because Russians have long been far more anxious about the threat of war than the populations of those  countries fighting Russia. Russians know their history better and remember the past more accurately than the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

According to the independent national pollster Levada Centre of Moscow, “since 1989, the main fears of Russians remain the diseases of loved ones (51% in April 2025), war (48%),  and loss of employment due to illness or accident (38%). Also, one in four are afraid of old age and  helplessness (27%), natural disasters (26%), and poverty (24%)…In recent years, respondents have become less afraid of illness among loved ones (decrease by 7 percentage points since July 2019);  poverty (decrease by 15 percentage points since February 2021); the arbitrariness of the authorities (decrease by 11 percentage points since July 2019), and revival of mass repression (decrease by 6 percentage points since February 2021).”  

Fear of war is on the rise in Europe, but this apprehension is still less than half the Russian level.   Americans, by contrast, are much more anxious about domestic violence at home than war abroad.

Russians are measurably happier than Americans with the direction they think the country is taking. According to Levada’s  last poll,   “in February 2025, the mood of Russians improved slightly compared to the end of last year and the beginning of this year: the majority of respondents (68%) have been in a normal, calm state in recent days. Since the last measurement in January, the proportion of those who experienced tension, irritation, and fear or melancholy has slightly decreased (to 16%), and the proportion of those who were in a good mood has slightly increased (to 15%).”

“As the experience of recent years shows”, VTsIOM — the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion – reports “the level of happiness demonstrates amazing resilience to external shocks. Let’s recall the pandemic. Contrary to the pessimistic forecasts, it did not discourage Russians: in April 2020, shortly after the introduction of the first coronavirus restrictions, the level of happiness was close to today. Moreover, until the end of 2020, the indicator didn’t fall below 80%; this partly indicates the psychological strength of our fellow citizens.”  VTsIOM is state owned and contracted.  

What Russians tell pollsters by telephone or face to face isn’t quite, much less all, they are feeling.

Three measurements of how they act are more revealing: that’s how much alcohol Russians  drink; what painkiller tablets they swallow; and what the pharmaceutical companies report to be the volume of their sales of anti-depressant drugs. Since the Covid pandemic began in 2020 and ended in 2021, and then the Special Military Operation commenced in February 2022, the figures show that vodka consumption is almost unchanged but whisky, brandy (cognac) and cocktail mixes are on the rise. Painkillers and analgesics are falling in volume of off-the-shelf sales. But by contrast, doctors’ prescription sales of anti-depressants have hit an all-time record high in 2024; the consumption through February of this year has been growing at a rate of between 15% and 17%.

This is either a dramatic change in the Russian mind;  or it’s a revolution in the Russian treatment of pain;  or it’s the result of more money, more doctors — more smiles at the bank,  as Putin recommended.   

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by Editor - Monday, May 19th, 2025
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