By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

The rupturing of the aorta which killed US Senator Lindsey Graham on July 11  causes sudden, excruciating pain across the chest; the internal bleeding causes death so rapidly most victims cannot be saved.

Graham’s fate is now to be inflicted by rapid enactment by the US Senate and House of the 500% tariff of the Graham sanctions bill on countries buying Russian oil, gas, uranium, coal, nickel, food grains.    The pain is aimed principally at China, India, Turkey.

The bleeding to death is planned to be the fate of President Vladimir Putin and Russia.

The Kremlin and its official media have issued no comment. Oleg Tsarev, the Ukrainian opposition leader in Crimean exile, published a death notice identifying the “very influential club”, to which Graham belonged, in which “there are no women or children. A very influential club.”  

Putin’s negotiator with the Trump administration for sanctions relief, Kirill Dmitriev, has fallen uncharacteristically silent without publishing a tweet for 48 hours.  

Over the same period,  press reports  have appeared in the Middle East confirming that  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decided to transfer his Russian S-400 batteries to one of three US allies in the war against Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE or Qatar;  and to have ordered Turkish forces to raise their flag at bases surrounding the Russian naval base at Tartous and the Russian airbase at Khmeimim, near Latakia on the Syrian coast.  

Responding to criticism of Putin for “betraying” the General Staff on retaining the Syrian bases and on supporting Iran against its enemies, a Moscow source commented: “The official justification for Putin’s approval [of the resale of the S-400 systems delivered to Turkey between 2017 and 2019 but never fired] will be as hypocritical as the Americans — it will be a ‘defensive weapon’ to be used in ‘specified circumstances only.’ And that’s it.  I expect no limits to what the Kremlin will stoop in their money-making now. You can expect, a year from now, Russian S-400s and 500s will be sold direct to the Emiratis and Saudis. No doubt about it. Strictly speaking, the Turks do not have to do a resale. They will say they are giving military defensive cover, jointly with Europe and the US, to the Arabs; the Russians will go along with that.  Putin’s problem is more urgent: he has to win the war in Ukraine to have any say in anything anywhere. If he doesn’t decide on this now, he’s Gorbachev 1985, waiting to be dismembered and sold in pieces to the Arabs, Turks, Europeans, and Chinese.”

Another Moscow source has been reporting the anticipation among Security Council officials that Putin must agree to the General Staff’s escalation options “within days”.  

In this timing, by coincidence or by calculation, the Russian oligarchs supporting Putin have published an appeal to him with strings attached. These have been spelled out by Andrei Melnichenko and published by The Economist on July 9.   Melnichenko warns Putin, and also the Graham sanctioneers in the White House and Congress, against four “scenarios” – “a humiliated Russia, lingering on the periphery of the West”, “Russia in China’s orbit”, “the fragmentation of Russia, which would rapidly become unmanageable”, and “Russia to become a fortress: closed, mobilised, in permanent siege”.  

Moscow sources believe there are more options than these.

They say the Security Council has proposed to Putin to decide that if he is not to face slow bleeding defeat, he must commit now to “complete Russian victory cutting Ukraine off from Europe, NATO and the US;   decapitation or exile for the Zelensky regime; and for Kiev and the main cities to be run in the manner the US runs Iraq. That victory brings military to power in Moscow.”

This is anathema to the oligarch base on which Putin has depended until now, when, Moscow sources agree, that is impossible.

“Melnichenko is speaking at the behest of the state oligarchs clan of which [First Deputy Prime Minister Denis] Manturov is the face and coordinator”,   according to one source. “They know [Roman] Abramovich is not the right person to intermediate. They want to retain their external wealth and their Russian assets so they are floating a ‘nothing and everything is possible’ balloon – if need be, to open a platform independent of Putin, but if he will come to an accommodation, so much the better.”

They are worried, a source in a position to know claims, by “the prospect of a entire shift toward a Chinese-style takeover by a military-nationalist alliance, the state takeover of all oligarch assets, a change of leadership at Rosneft and the state banks. This may not be plausible for the Kremlin. But it is being floated now. And there are other scenarios which the oligarchs also oppose. One would be for Putin to preserve his continuity in power on striking a grand deal with India and China. The Indians will show the middle finger to the Americans if the Chinese will but not alone. Putin will have to join, too.”

Another Moscow source suggests Melnichenko’s pitch looks to “be orchestrated by the British – they might have his balls in a nutcracker and they are putting him up to it now to test some of Putin’s allies and high-ranking bureaucrats. The usefulness of [Mikhail] Fridman, [Pyotr] Aven, [Roman] Abramovich has expired. There must be several other plays in the works and [Melnichenko] could be the chosen one to make the next move.”

That’s for later, the source adds. “Right now the problem for Putin is that in facing the war which the US and NATO are escalating against him, they have a succession objective, but he does not. Putin has created no successor.”

by Editor - Sunday, July 12th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Excerpts from the Red Pill Diaries with Rasheed Muhammad, podcast on July 11, 2026: click to view or listen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R4_bD4EcHs 

At the NATO summit in Ankara,  President Donald Trump has committed to maximum escalation against Russia risking and costing nothing for US voters but enriching the US military-industrial complex, the Trump family,  and their financiers.

The Kremlin strategy of sucking on TIT – Trust in Trump – has failed.

Russia is not able to send any message of pain to US voters in the way Iran has learned through its Hormuz Strait regime.

Our ruling classes are not running away in fear.

Empires don’t have to learn from their mistakes. Their victims do.

Most Russians are not Zionist. There is only one Zionist in the country – and that’s President Putin.

A hefty dose of the truth is better for your long life and health than a hefty dose of muscle-building fantasy.

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by Editor - Saturday, July 11th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Even presidents-for-life reach their dotage like everybody else. They prefer to die in their own beds, also like everybody.

In these three recent pieces, the case is made that Putin’s Russia – reading number 1 by Paul Craig Roberts — and Erdogan’s Turkey – reading number 3 by Abdullah Bozkurt — are like everybody, too.

In reading number 2, the case is made by Andrei Melnichenko, a Russian oligarch whose power and fortune come from banking, fertilizers, and coal, that short of death in bed or in war, the rule of President Vladimir Putin should not be succeeded by battlefield defeat, Trojan Horse subversion, nor by military rule. Rather, Russian rule should be based on the peaceful co-existence of Russian capital with international capital; Melnichenko calls that “respect for national sovereignty”.

By Russian capital, Melnichenko doesn’t say but means his own and the Russian oligarchy. By  international capital, he doesn’t say but means the US empire and its satrapies, including the  wealth havens Dubai, St. Moritz and Zug, where Melnichenko has kept himself, his counting houses, aeroplanes and boats since 2014.   

Melnichenko is proposing to die peacefully in bed – that’s a Trump-brand bed for which Melnichenko is content to pay a license advance,  a management fee, and an annual royalty.

Putin has never explained why his understanding of capitalism, Russian and international, is neither the Marxist-Leninist version of his Soviet education, nor the liberal globo-American version of his political practice. That’s because he has never admitted in public his personal version of religious capitalism, which he confided in secret to President George Bush when they met in October 2001. ” There is a contradiction between a new, young, aggressive financial Islamic capital and the old one,” Putin said. “A moment came when the new generation began to see the old as its competitor.  From the time bin Laden became your partner, he felt himself your competitor. His desire to move to Central Asia or elsewhere was his desire to muscle in and subjugate all others to his will. In reality, it is a financial issue. Religion is secondary. The real goal is to have a place in the centre of world finances, a place that is already occupied. They want to push away representatives of Jewish capital or, if not, they will try to destroy the centre and shake it up and, ultimately in that way, to take its place.” 

Added to his fear of state capitalism,  communism, and socialism, which Putin has made public,  he has tried to balance the Russian economy between Islamic capitalism (Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia) and Jewish capitalism (Israel, the US), and ended up taking sides with the latter.

In the immediate future, Paul Craig Roberts concludes there will be no dying peacefully in bed in Russia for as long as the Trump administration is not deterred or defeated in the drone war. “It’s an escalation,” Trump said on July 8,   “but it’s also an escalation that can help lead to an end.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained what Trump meant. “What you’re discussing is the ability of Ukraine to reach deep inside of Russia and conduct strikes. I think that’s one of the dynamics that’s changed in this war over the last few months, and that is that the Russians are finding it more difficult to defend their own airspace. And what we hope that means is that it’s going to create the space now to negotiate the end of this war.”  

Deafness to what they are saying, not to understand  this, Paul Craig Roberts writes, is naiveté, folly, “extraordinary blindness to reality…Reality has proved to be too much for Putin.  He has proven himself to be unable to cope with clear and obvious challenges.”  

This is the appearance of Russian politics from the outside.

From the inside of Russian politics, Melnichenko has given a special interview with The Economist, which is owned by a group of oligarch families – Agnelli of Italy (43.4%), Stephen Smith of Canada (26.9%),    and Cadbury, Sainsbury, and Schroder of the UK.   Melnichenko has proposed that a nuclear-armed Russia cannot be defeated in the current war without nuclear retaliation, and that the alternative to that should be an international accommodation of the oligarchies.

The third piece documents the decline into the final stage of epilepsy by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the escalation this is causing of the contest to replace him from four candidates, not one of which is as committed to preserving the current Turkish strategy with Russia as Erdogan. “Rival factions within the ruling establishment, including the AKP, the cabinet and Erdogan’s own family, have reportedly been positioning themselves for a post-Erdogan era amid concerns that health complications could abruptly end his political career.”  

In the history of the Turkish sultans, abrupt ends haven’t been medical ones.

If you read these pieces at the beach, watch out that the sand doesn’t get into the pages. I’ve added a little myself.

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by Editor - Thursday, July 9th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

The Ankara Summit Declaration  is vague enough and precise enough to mean everything and nothing to President Donald Trump (lead image) and those he regards as his subordinates, clients,  and marks in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In White House politics, it balances between the party for escalation of the war against Russia and the party for de-escalation and peace; that’s to say, pause in the war against Russia.

In Kremlin politics, it tips the balance between the party for escalation dominance in the war and the party that trusts in Trump to deliver terms for de-escalation; that’s also to say, pause in the war against Russia.

The difference between the White House and the Kremlin is that President Vladimir Putin is running out of options and time to strike a balance between his two parties while Trump calculates he has plenty of time and doesn’t care to help or hinder Putin in his predicament because the war in Europe doesn’t count with US voters, and will make no difference to the outcome of the November 3 Congressional elections.

Putin’s predicament is that he has no more balancing options between the opposites, escalation dominance to victory and escalation loss to defeat. Any further delay will signal Putin’s uncertainty and prevarication — or weakness in the face of the enemy. To Russian voters who will decide the outcome of the September 20 State Duma elections, that signals loss of confidence, defeat. Moscow sources in a position to know claim Putin now realizes Trump will not save him from having no choice.

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by Editor - Wednesday, July 8th, 2026
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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.

(more…)

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 - Monday, July 6th, 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 - Friday, July 3rd, 2026
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