By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

A mistake becomes a delusion when it is repeated, despite the obviousness of what can be seen  and the severity of the feedback.

What is the word for a person who keeps repeating the same mistakes, and what is the cure?

When the Artificial Intelligence (A) engines were marshalled to answer these questions, the “Overview” which came back was:  “A person who frequently or always makes mistakes is commonly called error-prone or incompetent. Depending on the severity and context of the mistakes, other terms include: Bungler or Blunderer: Someone who handles things clumsily and makes careless, stupid errors; Klutz: Best used for someone who is physically awkward and constantly dropping or tripping over things; Recidivist: A formal term for someone who repeatedly falls into the same bad habits or mistakes; Habitual offender: Often used in formal or behavioural contexts to describe someone who makes the same mistakes over and over.”

So as not to cause distress to individuals and loss of self-esteem, or trigger local laws on  discrimination against the handicapped,  the AI engines “generally agree that error prone is a great neutral term, while bungling and clumsy imply underlying physical or situation clumsiness”.

In Russian politics, during a national parliamentary election campaign, “error prone” isn’t a neutral term – it costs votes when the bunglers are held to account for their mistakes at the ballot box. In the present war, “error prone” can’t be a neutral term because it costs lives.

A mistake committed repeatedly during the combination of an election and a war is rare,  and so more difficult for the AI engines to give a name to.

The reason for this is that the global databases which the AI engines search for answers aren’t clear on whether mistakes committed on a vast scale of human destruction were mistakes at all. For example, is the genocide being carried out by the US and Israel against Palestine and Iran a mistake? Was the German genocide against the Jews and the Russians a mistake? The Turkish genocide against the Armenians? The British genocide against the Bengalis,  the Japanese against the Chinese, the French against the Cathars, the Romans against the Gauls, the Athenians against the Delians?  Etc.

Trying to answer these questions can trigger what AI technicians call hallucinations. In universities and think tanks, which do this sort of thing for their living, the answers are called  rewriting history.

Those who don’t agree with the re-write, don’t approve the answers, don’t accept the  hallucinations, often use their police powers to ban them and turn error-proneness into crimes,  send mistake repeaters to jail.

In European and American politics today, this process is called fascism. That’s not a hallucination at all.

In the new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid, we discuss the three looming Kremlin delusions in combating the escalation of NATO’s drone war; the trust in President Donald Trump to guarantee Russia’s security in Europe for the future, and the nazification of the European and American states for permanent war against Russia. Click to view or listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ezaX3h9ZMw 

by Editor - Tuesday, July 7th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Is President Vladimir Putin facing a World War I moment of fight to destroy the threat or negotiate an armistice?  Or is he facing a German nazification moment of the 1930s? Or is Putin miscalculating who is in the “Party of War” and who can be deterred from joining it?

“The European party of war proceeds from a false perception of the overall situation and developments on the frontline,” Putin told President Donald Trump in their telephone call on Sunday (July 4).   He then tried to explain what is happening on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Whose perception is the false one?

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the next day: “There is a war going on, this is a real war. It all started as a special military operation. It continues like a war, because Berlin, Paris, The Hague, Oslo, and, unfortunately, Washington are behind Kiev. Because they are being helped to aim through their satellites, they are being helped to aim foreign weapons at our targets through their entire infrastructure.”  

Well,   if that’s what Putin believes, what good will it do for Putin to welcome back to the Kremlin Trump’s negotiators, Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner? Peskov again, in the same press statement on July 5: “They’re busy right now. Once they have more time to spare, they will always be welcome in Moscow.”  

Trump failed to acknowledge the call with Putin in his daily tweeting.  But asked by a reporter on July 5 “why isn’t he [Putin] feeling any pressure after speaking with you?”, Trump replied: “Well, I think he does feel pressure. He wants to end it and Ukraine wants to end it, and we’re in talks and we’ll see if we can get it ended… And President Putin wants it to end, I will tell you that very strongly, good call. And President Zelensky actually wants it to end now. And we’re going to be going to NATO, and we’re going to be talking about it. And I think we’re going to get it — I think we’re going to get it ended. It’s been a terrible situation.”  

Putin insists that Trump doesn’t endorse, and won’t sign again, NATO’s strategy of permanent “pressure” on Russia. “I would like to note,” Putin told his military commanders at the front, “that both the Kiev regime and the purported European so-called peace makers, whose genuine objective is not peace but continuing the war with Russia to the last Ukrainian, reaffirm our assumption regarding their true intentions by their statements and practical actions. I want to stress that the June 7, 2026, joint statement by some of the EU leaders welcomed the innovative, as they put it, use of pilotless technologies by the Kiev regime.”

Putin was referring to the June 7 statement issued in London by the German, French and British leaders with Vladimir Zelensky.  “They discussed how to use the upcoming G7 summit at Evian, the next meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, and the NATO summit at Ankara to best coordinate further support for Ukraine based on its prioritised needs, including further pressure on Russia’s war economy and an increased pledge of military and defence support for Ukraine at the NATO Summit.”

Putin omitted to mention that ten days later, at the G-7 summit meeting at Evian on June 17, Trump signed this statement: “We, the Leaders of the G7, stand united in our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, and territorial integrity… To support and accelerate this new momentum, we agree to increase the delivery of air defence capacities, additional systems and interceptors, and long-range capabilities. We are also ready to consider extending to Ukraine the benefit of licenses to allow for an increase in Ukraine’s military production… We commit to increase the pressure on the Russian war economy. In this context, we will strengthen our sanctions, including those on the oil and gas sectors. We consider this the right moment to proceed with additional measures.”  

Strategic pressure – Trump supports it.

Putin refuses to believe it.

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by Editor - Monday, July 6th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

How not to lose the drone war?

This question, published on July 4, has been put bluntly by Dmitry Rogozin — former Russian ambassador to NATO, former deputy prime minister for the military-industrial complex, former chief of Roskosmos, and currently senator for the Zaporozhye region and front-line commander.

Rogozin, 62, also a veteran of Russian presidential election campaigning, is still campaigning.    “The winner is not the one who can shoot down more drones. The winner will be the one who will be able to make each subsequent enemy strike less effective and more expensive, and his own defense will become cheaper, more massive and automated. That’s what the real technological race is about today.”  

This question-and-answer should be interpreted in the current Russian political context; that’s to say, the one led by President Vladimir Putin and the answers Putin is making public to one of the questions which all Russian voters are asking just nine weeks from Election Day.

When he telephoned President Donald Trump on July 4, according to the Kremlin’s version of their conversation,   Putin omitted to identify US military and intelligence engagement in the escalation of the Ukrainian drone war on the front, in the Russian hinterland, and on the high seas. Instead, Putin said: “Kiev and its Western sponsors rely on drawing out and even escalating the conflict and terrorising civilians. Moreover, the European ‘party of war’ proceeds from a false perception of the overall situation and developments on the frontline. Our President [Putin]  has outlined the real situation on the battlefield, where the Russian Armed Forces are confidently advancing, liberating one settlement after another.”

Putin — said his spokesman Yury Ushakov — was trying to persuade Trump not to sign a statement of unified warfighting strategy against Russia at the NATO summit meeting; this will be held later this week in Turkey.

With the Europeans at the G-7 summit meeting in France on June 16-17, Trump had already signed his backing for escalation of the drone war. “We commit to increase the pressure on the Russian war economy,” Trump signed with the Europeans. “In this context, we will strengthen our sanctions, including those on the oil and gas sectors. We consider this the right moment to proceed with additional measures.”  

To Putin, according to Ushakov, Trump replied that “his special envoys – Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – will carry on their mediation efforts and are ready to come to Moscow at our convenience.”  Putin’s answer to that has not been reported.

Putin did remind Trump of the bribes Witkoff and Kushner have been discussing with Putin’s representative, Kirill Dmitriev. “There is colossal potential for mutually beneficial cooperation between our countries,” Putin reportedly said. Trump replied: “for these prospects to be realised, it is necessary to put a stop to the Ukrainian conflict as soon as possible.”

A Moscow source in a position to know claims the Russian bribes have not yet been paid to the Americans.

Dmitriev interrupted his Twitter stream on the UK turning “communist”  and gay to announce: “JUST IN: President Putin calls President Trump to congratulate him and the US on Independence Day.”    Reposting a Trump tweet on the immigration to Europe of “Third World criminals”, Dmitriev added: “Hopefully learning. Europeans understood this some time ago, but their bureaucrats are either slow learners or crave self-destruction.”  

Putin had nothing to say on the escalation of the drone war during his visit on Friday (July3) to a  command post at the front.  Instead, he claimed: “The establishment of a security zone in the border areas of the Kharkov, Sumy, and Dnepropetrovsk regions of Ukraine is also progressing according to plan.” In his report on the military situation, General Gerasimov said that Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian targets have “substantially reduced Ukraine’s industrial capacity to manufacture long-range weapons, including cruise and ballistic missiles, which has also increased the Kiev regime’s dependence on Western supplies of components, explosives, and fuel.”

Putin added: “The more strikes the enemy attempts against our civilian infrastructure – and, of course, our foremost priority is to do everything necessary to protect these facilities and the civilian population – the more such attempts they make, the larger the security zone we will be compelled to establish in the adjacent territory. Especially since this area, like the other territories we have discussed today, is historically Russian land.”

The depth of this  “security zone” – the extent of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) westward across the Ukraine — has become a controversial sensitivity for the Putin-Dmitriev negotiating terms with Witkoff and Kushner as the range of the US, NATO and Ukrainian drones is now almost twice the 1,300 kilometre distance between the eastern and western borders of the Ukraine.  

At the command post on Friday, referring to “the purported European so-called peace makers, whose genuine objective is not peace but continuing the war with Russia to the last Ukrainian”, but not to the Trump Administration, Putin told the officers: “We must also continue analysing the involvement of each instigator of the continuation of the war in Ukraine, the analysis of the involvement of each of them in real combat actions. We need this analysis for taking responsible decisions in the future.”  

The General Staff and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) understand that “each instigator” includes Trump and his officials. Putin and Dmitriev refuse to acknowledge this.

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by Editor - Sunday, July 5th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

A sixty-year old Greek whom nobody has ever heard of outside Athens has just revealed how the NATO war against Russia is being waged; why it will be permanent; and why the end-of-war terms President Vladimir Putin has made public stand no chance of being accepted.

Ever.

The Greek has also revealed the crucial condition for this permanent war against Russia:  the Ukrainians must do the fighting and suffer the losses of men, equipment and territory, so long as there are no direct losses in the territories, commercial revenues, and especially the election returns  of the NATO allies, starting with Greece and including the Trump Administration. The war against Russia is being won in each capital of the NATO alliance, and will continue to be a winner, so long as there are no money-costing and vote-losing “accidents” or “incidents”.

Those are two terms from Athanasios Dokos (lead image, right) who acknowledged “that’s a bit scary, to be honest.”

Dokos is the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Educated at Cambridge and Harvard, he was an academic, think tanker and advisor to the Greek Defence and Foreign Ministries until 2019 when he became the National Security Advisor. Last year Mitsotakis promoted Dokos to cabinet-level rank as Secretary-General for National Security.

When he was telephoned from Kiev on June 24, he thought he was talking to Rustem Umerov, now the head of the National Security and Defense Council, formerly Ukraine’s Defense Minister and part-time resident of Florida.   They had met the week before (June 18-19) Umerov reminded Dokos at the start of their call, but Dokos didn’t recognize the bogus voice; he thought he recognized Umerov, but never suspected he was looking at an AI-generated image, a deepfake.  Dokos also didn’t know that Russia’s intelligence services have his personal telephone number and the security codes in use at the Prime Ministry.  Dokos was talking to Russia’s most famous penetration spies – the telephone pranksters Vovan and Lexus.

To them pretending to be Umerov, Dokos revealed that as part of Greece’s long-term war strategy against Russia, it is continuing to implement plans for co-production of Ukrainian drones and Ukrainian drone warfare operations on Greek territory.  

The first signal of this scheme was announced last November by Prime Minister Mitsotakis with President Vladimir Zelensky;  Dokos was one of the negotiators of that announcement. The Greek shipyard beneficiary of the deal to build Ukrainian naval drones at Skaramangas is Paramount Industries Innovation Systems Greece, a subsidiary of the South African Paramount group. Paramount has announced an aerial and naval drone deal with the Ukrainians two weeks before the Dokos-Umerov conversation, on June 17.  

The engagement of a corporation in South Africa — purportedly a BRICS ally of Russia — in the war against Russia has not yet been noticed in the Russian media.  

In the company press release celebrating its Kiev deal, Paramount has revealed that “the boat and its drones are bound together through a system MAC HUB  calls MAC Mission Control, which it says links the platforms into a single network and coordinates them in real time from a mobile command post onshore.”  

Onshore Ukrainian drone command and control systems – this is the top secret which Dokos has revealed he was asking Umerov and Zelensky to continue running without “incidents” and “accidents”.

Dokos also revealed that the head of the Greek intelligence agency EYP, Themistoklis Demiris,  was in Kiev shortly before his conversation was recorded to meet his SBU counterpart Yevgeny Khmara to go over the secret terms of the drone plan and its deployment in Greece without further public discoveries and embarrassments.

Dokos and Demiris, “Umerov” was told, want to make sure that Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian vessels in the waters off Greece, launched from “onshore Ukrainian drone command and control systems” – Greek and NATO bases in the region — should not interfere with Greek shipping operations or deter tourism in the Greek islands.

“We understand the needs of war on your side,” Dokos also told “Umerov” that if the Ukrainian drone units want to target and kill Russian targets, “maybe you could find a Russian billionaire.”

Dokos wasn’t joking; his boss tried to laugh it off. Prime Minister Mitsotakis has ordered the Greek press into a cover-up. “Greek officials said Dokos had provided no confidential or classified information during the conversation, adding that communications security measures are being upgraded to deal with similar ‘hybrid attacks’…. Greek government officials said the pranksters used ‘highly advanced’ artificial intelligence technology. Similar attacks in the past have targeted senior European officials,’ they added. ”

View the 12-minute conversation recorded and then broadcast in Moscow  by Vovan and Lexus  on Tuesday and Wednesday (July 1-2): in the original Russian here  and here;  in direct English;  and in the version circulating in the Greek media.  They are identical and authentic.  The only Russian press report of the conversation appeared in Gazeta.ru on July 2.

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by Editor - Sunday, July 5th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In the September election President Vladimir Putin doesn’t come before Russian voters to bury Russia but to praise it.

As he has been explaining about the propaganda war of the Western elites, as Putin calls the enemy now,  the evil they do is living after them these days; the good they do he doesn’t intend to let the General Staff inter with their bones.

In his own words, carefully prepared for the domestic and Western press on December 20, 2018,   and then at an election rally this week (June 28),  here are his two visions for Russia:

Pre-war:
“Question: Mr President, society strongly demands social justice. According to Levada Centre, 66 percent of respondents feel nostalgic about the Soviet Union. And here is my question: do you think that a restoration of socialism is possible in Russia?

Vladimir Putin: I think this is impossible. I believe that the deep changes that have taken place in our society make restoring socialism in the sense you mean impossible. There can be social elements in the economy and the social sector, but expenses will always exceed profits, and as a result, the economy would be at a dead end. But the just distribution of resources, the fair treatment of people who live below the poverty line, and a state policy aimed to lower the number of people who have to live like that, to provide the majority of people with healthcare services and education in acceptable conditions, if this is the socialism we are talking about, we are holding to the very same policy. Our national programmes that we talked about in the beginning of this meeting, are mostly aimed at all this.”  

Post-war:
“Russia is experiencing unprecedented pressure from the Western elites. They are unable to inflict a strategic defeat on us or win a victory on the battlefield; their attempts to destabilise the political situation and sow internal unrest are failing too…Once again, Russia is confidently repelling any attempts to deter our progress. We have sufficient resources, means, and political will, and nobody should doubt that. Yes, we see and realise our problems – we also respond to them. We will absolutely ensure the security of our country and our citizens, and the inviolability of Russia’s borders for decades ahead. This is our ultimate goal. We will certainly handle all the challenges we are facing today, including terrorist attacks on our territory and our infrastructure.We will also solve any domestic development issues – primarily demographic issues, the preservation of our traditional values, and improving the quality of life and living standards in all the regions of our immense country.”  

Readers, here I am to speak what I do know that Putin says.

Yes, in wartime men lose their reason.

So, read again what he says so that your judgement won’t be ruled by brutish beasts —  I mean British elites.

by Editor - Friday, July 3rd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

“We will not abandon the Cuban people in their time of need,” Russia’s Energy Minister, Sergei Tsivilev, announced three months ago to the day.    

“A Russian vessel [Anatoly Kolodkin] has broken through the blockade. Now a second one is being loaded. We won’t leave the Cubans hanging,” he told an energy industry conference in Kazan on April 2.  

A week later in Havana, a Russian ministerial delegation announced that Russia was planning to do more to defend Cuba from the US blockade than shipping crude oil and petroleum products.  “The issue of ensuring the island’s energy security is a priority,” said Sergei Ryabkov, first deputy foreign minister. “But it’s too early to say what the next steps will be. It is well known that we generally do not limit ourselves to the supply of that batch of oil that has already arrived on the island on the tanker Anatoly Kolodkin.”   “We don’t focus on protocol, on decorative aspects in our relations, but purely on the specifics of the tasks that we face. This is what our leaders are aiming at, and the Cuban president was as specific as possible in today’s conversation.”   

By then the state shipping company Sovcomflot’s tanker Universal had loaded a 30,000-tonne cargo of petroleum products at Ust Luga and Primorsk, and then headed towards Cuba. Through the English Channel and into the Atlantic, it was escorted by a Russian Navy frigate.  

But the Universal never reached Cuba.

Instead, it remained adrift in the Sargasso Sea of the North Atlantic until it turned, not west towards Cuba but south to Brazil. It then entered the Amazon River and reached Manaus on June 21.  The Universal had been left hanging for two months. No Russian crude oil, diesel,  or other petroleum products have crossed the US blockade to reach Cuba except for the first, the Kolodkin, on March 31.

Delivering 730,000 barrels of crude  oil,  the Kolodkin was the second Russian attempt to run Trump’s gauntlet. By the time it had unloaded and its crude refined into diesel, the new supplies lasted for about two weeks. The Sea Horse, Hong Kong-flagged and loaded with 200,000 barrels of Russian diesel transferred from another vessel off Cyprus in the Mediterranean,  had approached Cuba on February 25. However, it was then diverted on Moscow’s orders to Venezuela.   

Who has been giving the orders in Moscow?

Not Tsivilev at the Energy Ministry, not Lavrov at the Foreign Ministry.

On June 3, Lavrov’s deputy in charge of Latin America, Alexander Shchetinin, announced to the press that “we are engaged in the closest collegial cooperation with our Cuban friends. Undoubtedly, we coordinate the steps that need to be taken in the difficult situation they are currently dealing with. Cuba certainly remains our partner and friend, and we continue to provide political support to the country,”   Shchetinin was choosing his adjectives carefully. Political support there was – no more.

The state media revealed how little Putin had decided to do for Cuba when he was in Astana, Kazakhstan, a few days before, for the summit meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU); Cuba is an official participant in the EAEU as an observer; in Astana it was represented by Vice President, Salvador Valdés Mesa. Putin refused to meet him in one of several sideline talks the Kremlin records Putin held with others.  

Instead, Pavel Zarubin, a state television artificial intelligence, was told to make a video record of a “brief conversation with a Cuban delegation.” According to Tass, “the video shows the Russian leader coming up to the representatives of the Cuban delegation, exchanging a couple of words and shaking hands with them.”  

Putin had said more on February 18 when he met the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez, in the Kremlin. Lavrov was the senior minister at the table; Igor Sechin, head of the state oil company Rosneft, was also there. Putin told Rodriguez for the record: “We have always stood by Cuba in its struggle for independence, for the right to pursue its own path of development, and we have consistently supported the Cuban people…We are now witnessing a particular period marked by new sanctions. You know our stance on this – we reject such measures outright. The position of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs is clear, unequivocal, and has been articulated openly.”  

What Putin meant was that Lavrov would do the talking against Trump’s sanctions, and Sechin would send the oil to break the blockade. But Putin’s secret orders to them were different.

(more…)

by Editor - Thursday, July 2nd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Russia’s escalation options for ending the war on the original terms of the Special Military Operation of February 2022 are now too little, too late.

This is because demilitarization of the Ukrainian battlefield cannot stop or deter the rearmament of the NATO allies for permanent war against Russia.

Nor can denazification of the Kiev regime succeed when the NATO allies have become nazified, like the Trump regime in Washington. Militarization and nazification have become US empire  war aims against Russia. They are highly profitable ones for President Donald Trump, his family and associates, and for the military-industrial complexes, the banks, the stock, betting and crypto markets,  and election financing machines of the US in league with the Germans, French, and British.  

They are planning the permanent war future in which the territorial concessions Putin agreed to in Anchorage a year ago – Crimea and the four Novorussian regions in exchange for a US guarantee of Russia’s security in Europe – will not produce the “the security of our country and our citizens, and the inviolability of Russia’s borders for decades ahead”. That was Putin’s promise to Russian voters in his first election campaign rally early this week (June 28).  

The President then admitted the negative in an evening interview with Pavel Zarubin (lead image, left), a reporter favoured by the Kremlin for his artificial intelligence.  

“As for the attacks on critical infrastructure in general and energy infrastructure in particular,” Putin said, “they are, of course, creating problems. That is obvious. We are currently seeing certain shortages, although they are not critical, as I will explain. There are several tasks we need to address, and we have just discussed them.”  

That discussion was at Putin’s meeting an hour earlier with the oil oligarchs and government ministers.   

With the reporter, Putin also acknowledged “the strikes on our civilian infrastructure are intended not only to inflict damage on us – although I believe that is certainly one of the enemy’s objectives – but also to fuel an information campaign, or perhaps more accurately, an information operation as part of the broader confrontation with Russia. At a minimum, its purpose is to undermine our confidence in ourselves and our capabilities and, ideally, to create divisions within Russian society, force Russia to suspend, even temporarily, the advance of our forces along the line of contact and create conditions for launching negotiations on terms favourable to our adversary.We will not give them that opportunity. It is all the more important to understand that these terrorist attacks have no impact whatsoever on the situation at the front.”  

Putin also disclosed the new variants of the Anchorage formula which Kirill Dmitriev has relayed from Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner: “One is that both sides should stop carrying out long-range strikes deep inside each other’s territory. The reason for this proposal is obvious. Our retaliatory strikes deep inside Ukrainian territory are far more powerful, more effective and, frankly, more destructive, resulting in genuinely serious consequences for the Kiev regime. Another proposal is to limit military operations – please note this carefully – to just four territories: the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, while halting hostilities everywhere else.”

So what is the end-of-war plan now?

“Our primary objective [is] the final liberation of Donbass and Novorossiya,” Putin continued. “We know that the West continues to pursue Russia’s strategic defeat. There have been occasional suggestions that this is no longer the case, but officially no one has abandoned that objective. The goal remains Russia’s strategic defeat.  If that is so, then why are they calling for a ceasefire and peace negotiations, and increasingly expressing a desire to take part in them?  If Ukraine is, as they claim, capturing more and more territory and liberating it – in other words, if it is winning – then Western leaders simply need to wait. Russia’s strategic defeat would, it would seem, come about of its own accord. So let them wait. Meanwhile, our troops will continue doing their job and will do everything necessary to achieve the objectives of the special military operation.”  

Does Putin end up admitting what the critics of his trust-in-Trump strategy have been saying, but at the same time remaining fixed where he was, and intends to remain?

In the podcast on Wednesday evening (July 1), Jamarl Thomas asks the questions Zarubin didn’t ask and Putin didn’t answer. Click to view or listen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FBbvrc0S6U

(more…)

by Editor - Wednesday, July 1st, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Of the many questions we have been asking during this war, here’s a new one. A double-barreled one.

What will it take for the Kremlin to ensure that the outcome of Russian votes at the national parliamentary election on September 18-20 will be a majority for the ruling United Russia party against the Communist Party and other opposition forces? What will it take for the US, NATO, and the Ukraine to trigger the postponement of the election or election fraud too visible to preserve Russian voter confidence in Putin?  

Asked on June 25 if he thinks the Zelensky regime in Kiev “is winning right now”, President Donald Trump answered: “he’s doing pretty well. Look, no matter how you look at it, he’s doing pretty well. He’s holding his own at least. A lot of people dying on both sides, but I think he’s doing pretty well. Can I ask you — you have to say he’s courageous. He’s got great equipment, but he’s got great men. He’s got fighters.”  

Trump added about Putin: “you could say that Vladimir has some other things to focus on.” 

Three days later, at the first election rally of the State Duma election campaign, Putin replied: “We see and realise our problems – we also respond to them. We will absolutely ensure the security of our country and our citizens, and the inviolability of Russia’s borders for decades ahead. This is our ultimate goal. We will certainly handle all the challenges we are facing today…including terrorist attacks on our territory and our infrastructure. We will also solve any domestic development issues – primarily demographic issues, the preservation of our traditional values, and improving the quality of life and living standards in all the regions of our immense country…”   

“In September, the ninth convocation of the State Duma will be formed. In many regions, large-scale election campaigns for legislative and representative authorities will also take place, and their composition will be updated. The elections will be held within the established timeframe, in strict correspondence with the law, and all measures will be taken to ensure the safety of election commission members, candidates, observers, and electors, as well as to protect the results of the people’s vote from any attempts at external influence or manipulation. The necessary instructions in this regard have been formulated and will certainly be issued.”

“I am certain that competition will be open and honest – after all, our people’s trust in our democratic institutions constitutes the essential condition of our society’s stability and unity. The electoral process is a test of strength for our political system and an immensely important step for the country’s development, as well as the strengthening of its stability and public accord.”  

“We realise our problems” – that’s the Russian President’s public acknowledgement of the obvious. It’s not a victory exclamation mark, nor an end-of-war formula as Putin and his officials have been insisting they got from Trump at the Anchorage, Alaska, summit a year ago.  

That, declared US Secretary of State Marco Rubion on June 25, was Putin’s “proposal…but there was no agreement in Alaska.  If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end to the war.  So as I said, the President is prepared, as the United States remains prepared, to play whatever constructive role we can to bring about an enduring end to this war in Ukraine, and which has been bloody – 25 – 20,000 soldiers killed every month; 5,000 a week, most of them Russian.  So it’s been debilitating for Europe, for the – but especially for Ukraine and for Russia increasingly.”  

What Rubio meant by increasing the “debilitation” for Russia is what he called the “constructive role we can bring about”. This isn’t new – it has been US empire strategy since the November 1917 revolution; since the German invasion of June 1941; since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in August 1945; since the execution of the Rosenbergs in June 1953; since the Kiev putsch of February 2014. They weren’t pinpricks then. The Trump-Zelensky drone war against Russia in the hinterland and on the high seas isn’t pinpricks now.   

This is so far from the Putin line, promoted daily in tweeting by Putin’s negotiator with the Trump family, Kirill Dmitriev, he has been uncharacteristically struck dumb.  That’s dumb as: “If only EU governments were capable of acknowledging and correcting their mistakes, there would be much more hope for Europe”.   “Merz and Germany stand united in defeat, and that is what makes them strong — just paraphrasing Chancellor Merz or whoever writes these embarrassing soccer tweets for him.  If they cannot get soccer tweets, immigration, energy, or the economy right, what can they do?”  

In the new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid, we go beyond the punctuation marks to the facts on the battlefields and at the negotiating tables. Click to listen or view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHQiDaQ8PZU

by Editor - Tuesday, June 30th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

“Your Excellency, I would like to also thank you,” Shehbaz Sharif said to President Vladimir Putin (lead image) last September, “for supporting Pakistan and trying to have a balancing act in the region.”   

Sharif is his country’s spokesman prime minister. Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s military ruler, was sitting in the third protocol seat on Sharif’s right side, opposite Putin’s foreign policy spokesman, Yury Ushakov.

Munir is one of President Donald Trump’s closest Asian allies and personal supporters.   If he said anything in the meeting with Putin, it has not been reported publicly.  Putin was briefed to understand, nonetheless,  that inside Pakistan, there can be no balancing act for Sharif – he is under Munir’s control; and that between Pakistan and the US, there can be no balancing act for Munir – he is under US control.

This was explained discreetly by Putin’s Defense Minister, Andrei Belousov, in April last year. The Americans, Belousov said, “are seeking to transform the regional security system into an American-centric one by strengthening Washington-controlled military and political structures. Such actions provoke tension, undermine regional stability, and increase the risks of armed conflicts…We are closely monitoring the attempts of extra-regional states to ensure military presence and logistical missions in Central Asia. We consider this unacceptable.”

Unacceptable at the table is one thing – Belousov didn’t say what Russia is going to do about it in the field. Last March, for example, just after the US and Israel had launched new attacks and resumed their war on  Iran, Russian and Pakistani officials confirmed Sharif was about to make his first visit to Moscow. Following US consultations Munir ordered the visit cancelled.  

Sergei Shoigu – Defense Minister until he was removed in 2024 for corruption and now Secretary of the Security Council – said more last month: “Our fundamental approach is that the United States and its allies must acknowledge full responsibility for their 20-year presence in Afghanistan and assume the main burden of its post-conflict reconstruction. We consider the return of third-country military infrastructure to Afghanistan or the deployment of new military facilities in neighbouring states unacceptable.”   

Shoigu meant that at Munir’s direction, the US is planning to deploy “new military facilities” in Pakistan. By that, Russian military intelligence means covert and overt US war capacities and operational plans in Pakistan to target Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India and China in the east. .

Meaning this much at the table is one thing – what Putin is doing, according to the Pakistanis, is trying to perform a balancing act.

Putin, Belousov, Shoigu, the intelligence chiefs, and the General Staff were all educated to understand that because the material world is dialectical,   it is impossible to balance between contradictions – they will always resolve themselves one way or another. Putin’s balancing act, interpreted on the Russian side dialectically, is to make sure he is either on the winning side or never on the losing side. When Putin has put himself on the brink of the latter, the General Staff have told him “We told you so” (MVG — Мы же вам говорили).  Starting at the US putsch in Kiev in February 2014 and the threatened capture of Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol, the MVG is message has been delivered many times, and continues to be delivered.

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by Editor - Monday, June 29th, 2026
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By Pelle Neroth Taylor in Stockholm, introduced by John Helmer
  @bears_with

There is almost no point in explaining, example after example, why President Vladimir Putin is mistaken in his understanding of how to deal with the propaganda war of the western world against Russia. Click.  

This is because he demonstrates his refusal to learn by continuing to pay and believe his chief propagandists in Moscow (no names) and those in the western media whom they pay (no names). Click again  and again.  

Almost no point, I said.

What remains of the point is the human right, not just to speak, assemble and publish, but to think first. This — this is the moral duty of the free-thinking person. It’s a duty that comes before religion (including religions of national superiority, no names) because faith ought to follow after thinking, oughtn’t it? If not, faith is a childish mistake, compounded for grownups by the compelling force of state power and the beguiling subversions of class and cash.   

There’s nothing in the US Bill of Rights and Constitution to protect thinking, let alone to  require it.  In fact, Article 1 of the Bill and the First Amendment explicitly put the freedom of religion first and foremost, and assign faith superiority over the freedoms to speak and to assemble.   This superiority is a constitutional guarantee for lying, propaganda, brainwashing, information warfare. At least in the law-abiding United States.

Incapacity to think, unwillingness to tell the difference between true and false, mental impairment – these aren’t terms required for the removal of a US president according to the 25^th Amendment of the Constitution. The amendment is a political subterfuge – it has kept Ronald Reagan, Joseph Biden, Donald Trump safely in office.

And so we come to this analysis of the success of the Swedish lie exposed in every respect by Pelle Neroth Taylor.

Read it and think. Think and read it again because the same lie operation is succeeding against you, wherever you are.

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by Editor - Saturday, June 27th, 2026
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