By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

It was a British prime minister, Harold Wilson, who once said that a week is a long time in politics. The Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who ranks higher than a minister as a Politburo member of the Chinese Communist Party, has just demonstrated that five hundred milliseconds is a long time in politics.

As the lead images show — recorded by the state China Central Television (CCTV) camera crew in Beijing on Wednesday —   that minuscule interval in time elapsed as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was greeted by Wang before they sat down with their delegations to talk. The top row shows Araghchi approaching Wang, shaking his hand, then inclining his head forward. Wang, reciprocating, leans forward, and the two men embrace. They then draw apart, as each man smiles at the other.

The second row picture recapitulates the hug, a few milliseconds after it had begun. Araghchi had been planning the embrace in advance, signalling Wang with a smile. Wang did not reciprocate with his smile until the hug commenced. Wang’s thin smile was broadening as he drew back, continuing to hold on to Araghchi’s right arm and saying something in the language they shared, English.

The third row picture shows the two officials straightening, unsmiling, for a ceremonial handshake for the cameras. This is the picture which most international media have used to illustrate the meeting — the first at this high level since the US and Israel war began against Iran on February 28.

Take note, however — the photo sequence, captured by slowing down the speed and snipping the images frame by frame shortly after they were first released, has been edited, first by CCTV and then by most western media. Between the second and third second of the original film, Araghchi’s left arm and hand went up to Wang’s shoulder as they drew together in their embrace. However, CCTV has edited out the hug: in the footage broadcast subsequently by most international  media, the hug has disappeared altogether, to be replaced by the formal handshake.   The cut occurred at about the 500^th millisecond.

Not everyone erased the Araghchi-Wang hug. The Turkish state media agency Anadolu, for example, has continued to broadcast it.  

What has transpired took Wang, the Politburo, and President Xi Jinping a full seven days to decide.

That’s the interval since April 30, when Wang disclosed he had just spoken by telephone with US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.  To Rubio, Wang announced that the Taiwan Strait was a higher geopolitical priority for China than the Hormuz Strait, and that if President Donald Trump agreed, he and President Xi would enjoy their summit meeting on May 14 in a celebration of  the “U.S.-China relationship…the most important bilateral relationship in the world, and that head-of-state diplomacy lies at the core of this relationship. Both sides should maintain communication and coordination, respect each other, and properly manage differences to accumulate results for high-level interactions and seek strategic stability.”  

That there, declared Wang for Xi, was the precondition for Trump’s arrival in Beijing. “The Taiwan question bears on China’s core interests and is the biggest risk in China-U.S. relations,” Wang said. “The U.S. side should honour its commitments and make the right choice.” As for the Hormuz Strait and Trump’s war against Iran, Wang left that to his last line, an almost empty mention: “The two sides also exchanged views on the situation in the Middle East and other issues.”  

Wang’s declaration was published in the evening of April 30, local time. For more analysis, read this.  

Wang’s ministry then went silent. The last of the ministry’s daily briefings was held shortly before Wang’s conversation with Rubio last Thursday. There was no mention at the briefing of the Iran war or of the Trump summit meeting.  The ministry then closed officially to celebrate the nationwide May Day holiday from Friday, May 1, through Wednesday, May 5.

When the ministry returned to the daily briefing on Thursday, May 6, it was late in the day and the Wang-Araghchi meeting had already concluded.  Asked what had happened, the briefer replied: “They exchanged views on bilateral relations and international and regional issues of mutual interest. More information on this will be released soon. Please stay tuned.”   

State media reporters representing France, Russia, and the US propaganda agencies – Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, New York Times – asked for China’s response to threats by President Trump to escalate militarily at the Hormuz Strait and in sanctions against Chinese purchases and tanker shipments of Iranian oil.  

Asked to confirm Trump’s arrival for the meetings with Xi on May 14-15, the official answer appeared to be non-committal. “Do you have any details on that visit, such as when it might happen? Lin Jian: Please stay tuned.”  Bloomberg asked the question; it hasn’t reported the answer. Nor have AP, Reuters, or the New York Times who all heard it.

That answer isn’t non-committal. It is now Wang’s and Xi’s precondition for Trump – and this marks a change in China’s policy towards the Iran war.  “China believes,” Wang’s spokesman said, “that bringing about a full stop of hostilities is of utmost urgency, a relapse in fighting must be avoided and sticking to negotiations is highly important. China supports Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty and security.”

If Trump “relapses into fighting” and does not “stick to negotiations”, Xi is communicating that Trump will not be allowed to land in Beijing next week.  China will not permit itself to be Trump’s cover for attacking Iran, as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi allowed himself to endorse the Israeli-American war against Iran in the Knesset on February 25, two days before the war began.  Wang is changing the meaning of what he told Rubio on April 30.

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by Editor - Thursday, May 7th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Easter came early this year with good news.  

In the first three months to March 31,   exports of fresh Russian chicken eggs increased by 21% over the same period of 2025. Mongolia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were the leading importers. How exactly the UAE landed the eggs is unclear since air traffic was limited by the war against Iran and the Hormuz Strait closed to cargoes heading for UAE ports.

The politics of Russian eggs has been salutary for President Vladimir Putin.

In December 2023, in his annual question-and-answer review of the year, he apologized to two pensioners who complained at the sharply rising price of  eggs and chicken meat. “ ‘It is very sad to buy eggs in our country,’ grieves Andrei Samoilov from the Tomsk Region. Anastasia Plastinina from Ivanovo asks: ‘Are these eggs laid by golden hens or what?’ ”  

Putin replied: “I am sorry about this and want to apologise for this problem. This is a setback in the Government’s work. Although they say this is not the case, I still think it is – the problem is related to a failure to increase imports enough. Apparently, they hoped to make more money, but they promised to fix this soon.”

The president also had this explanation to demonstrate the grip he held on the laying hens of the country in wartime. “This is what happened. As I said, we had a slight increase, but still an increase in income, the level of salaries and so on. The demand went up. This is a relatively cheap source of protein; it is popular with people. I am happy to eat scrambled eggs myself, and at one time, I could easily gulp down ten at once in the morning. But what happened? Demand grew but production did not. This is the first point. The second point. Imports were not started soon enough or in the needed volumes. Incidentally, some Turkish companies are now offering us additional imports. We are developing our economic ties, including in agriculture, very well. Other countries, including Belarus, also have proposals. But we didn’t start our imports on time. We should have resolved these problems within the EAEU [Eurasian Economic Union].  Decisions were made, I think the other day, but at any rate they must be made in December, so the situation is bound to improve – there is no doubt about this. I am hoping for this very much. Because these conversations with the Ministry of Agriculture took place at least two weeks ago.”  

Two years later, in the same annual December show, Putin patted himself and the pensioners on the back. “I would note that last year, or the year before, we were critically assessing the actions of our colleagues in the Government when the price of eggs suddenly spiked. Now, prices are not just falling – they have dropped by over ten percent, almost 16 percent. These are also important factors. Nevertheless, without any doubt, we must closely monitor the situation in every segment and across every demographic group.” 

For Putin, however, the polls are showing that voter approval of what he says and does is several percentage points lower today than it was last December, and much lower than it was in December 2023. It is just as clear in the Kremlin that one can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs. Scrambled eggs, too. Levada Centre polling shows that when the price of eggs goes up, voter approval of Putin goes down.   Never mind that Russian eggs are cheaper than any other European eggs (except Ukraine).  

For Putin there has been an egg-before-chicken problem. He was so successful in his promise of December 2023 and order to the Agriculture Ministry, a surge of egg output followed in 2024 and 2025. So many eggs in fact, that supply outstripped demand. When prices fell, as they usually do in such a situation, Russian egg producers started to export their surplus to keep the price stable and their profit margin up.   The first Russian eggs began to feed American buyers for the first time in over thirty years – despite the sanctions war.  

The pensioners are not complaining to Putin about egg prices now. The egg farmers are complaining instead, as rising costs, low-priced competition from Chinese egg dumping,  and low domestic egg prices have crushed the profitability of the farms.    

The egg farmers don’t have as many votes at election time as consumers. And in the latest poll of Russian voter intention if the presidential election were called next Sunday, Putin has dropped to 49%. This is far ahead of the current presidential rivals, but it is far below the 68% vote he received in 2024, just before the March election of that year.  

He’s been less popular in voter choice – 30% in 2005; 13% in 2008; 29% in 2014.   But this is a parliamentary election year; the next presidential election isn’t until 2030. But presidential succession politics are perennial, especially in wartime.

This is a scrambled way of introducing the new podcast discussion with Nima Alhkorshid in which we pick out the good news from the bad news on the several fronts of the war President Donald Trump and his allies are fighting against Iran, Russia, and China.

We start and end the hour-long podcast with a question about China’s intentions towards its allies, and this question about President Xi Jinping and Trump come May 14, when their Beijing summit is scheduled to begin.

Who will chicken first?

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by Editor - Wednesday, May 6th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

On April 29 President Vladimir Trump telephoned President Donald Trump for a conversation lasting more than an hour and a half. The conversation was reported by Putin’s spokesman, Yury Ushakov,  as “in a friendly manner and was frank and businesslike.” It concluded, he said, “on a warm note, wishing each other all the best.”  

If Putin detected any sign of cognitive disconnection in Trump – trailing sentences, lost subjects, slurring of speech, word salad, short-term memory loss, frequent change of topic – he is keeping the evidence top secret.

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by Editor - Tuesday, May 5th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In the beginning there was the Word.

The Greeks recited it homerically for those who couldn’t read or write but enjoyed a bloody war story in which their side killed their enemies with an assist from the gods on Mount Olympus.  

Later, the Jews wrote it down on stone tablets by dictation from their god on Mount Sinai; then downhill they elaborated on goat skins on what He and they agreed He had meant chabadistically.    

The Americans have been publishing their Word in print papers until they invented tweets for those with short attention spans, then podcasts for those who want to do something else (not read) at the same time.

In the Chinese versions of these new media, an antidote has been necessary for the problem which the Chinese leadership has.  The problem is that China state representatives haven’t the words to explain, persuade or convince either their own people, or their allies,  or their adversaries. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, for example employs a robot by the name of Guo Jiakun to do this job. He looks human, neurologically speaking; what he says is robotic, and slower in output than a common AI system.   

To camouflage this glaring difference which western audiences detect, and limit the consequential damage to the credibility of their officials, the Chinese have devised a novel propaganda system to explain their rationale. The reason the Chinese leadership has nothing clear to say in public, they say, is not that they don’t know what’s on their minds, but rather that they don’t care that others don’t understand.  

Don’t care – this is the new Chinese propaganda (Chiprop) system.

Chinese officials don’t care, as Chiprop explains the thinking in Forbidden City, because the Chinese are winning all the wars everybody else (US, Israel, Iran, Russia, Ukraine etc.) is fighting. They achieve this, Chiprop also claims, because they have already predicted correctly everything that has happened; and because in the future, even now, Chinese military systems have proved they are superior to anything anyone else is preparing to field on the battlefield or has already tested in action.

What the Chiproppers also mean is that in the Ukraine war and the Iran war, the lesson is that the victories of the Russians and Ukrainians over the Americans, NATO allies, and Israelis are temporary and illusory. They are no more than the illustration of the superiority of Chinese strategy, operations, tactics, and indeed the Chinese mind, for the future in which all of the current adversaries – Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz, Mojtaba Khamenei, Benjamin Netanyahu – will have been buried, superseded, forgotten.

“This is not the Iran War. It is WWIII”, declared a Chipropper who appeared freshly four months ago, anonymously named China Arbitrageur (“ChinArb”). “It is already over…WWIII is the war 21st-century globalized industrial civilization can fight. Its weapons are not tanks and carriers. They are supply-chain interdiction, chokepoint sovereignty, financial weaponization, and resource arbitrage. It does not need a declaration, because in a globalized economy you are already in a state of mobilization. It does not need a casus belli, because the existence of the dependency relationship itself is the casus belli. It does not need to end in a treaty, because what it transfers is not territory — it’s control over flows.”  

This is the World War which China has already won, according to ChinArb of Chiprop.

“System C won the entire war tactically. System A lost strategically. System B won strategically. These are three different subjects. This is the first time System C has let the world see itself. But please also remember — this is only the first time.”    

ChinArb explains that System A is the US, Israel, the NATO allies, Japan, South Korea – each and all of them defeated already. System B is China which has won. System C isn’t identified but appears to refer to Iran and behind Iran’s tactical victory, China,  because it “controls the flows”.

In this advance celebration of VOW day – Victory Over the World – the Chinese don’t care to address any of the issues the current war combatants claim to be their war aims, their war settlement terms. “Beijing cares about oil. Beijing doesn’t care whose oil… If China has no loyalty even to the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], then what is the actual relationship between Beijing and the IRGC? It is not a subordinate relationship. It is not a ‘constraint and constrained’ relationship…Beijing cares about oil. Beijing doesn’t care whose oil…The IRGC knows that China is not loyal to the IRGC. China is loyal to oil. The IRGC is just one of many sellers of oil on this planet — and because it can only sell to China (excluded by the global sanctions regime from all other buyers), China can buy from it at a deep discount.”  

“What China has built is System B — a global industrial network woven together from manufacturing capacity, resource flows, logistics, settlement channels, and infrastructure investment. And an industrial system does not need proxies, because the expansion mechanism of an industrial system does not depend on military victory at all. It expands by converting industrial output into the dependency relationships of the physical world itself. Its influence is not produced by action — it is produced by existence. The fact that 1.4 billion Chinese people’s industrial appetite exists on this planet is itself enough to change the calculus of every resource exporter, every port, every mine, every refinery, every shipping company. It does not need to send anyone anywhere to persuade anyone of anything — its industrial metabolism is doing this on its own, every day, twenty-four hours, without rest.”  

“This exchange of System A’s apparent victories for the kind of concession System B doesn’t care about — has a name. It is the actual operating mechanism of the Islamabad negotiation. But it is more than a mechanism. It is what you will see in every news headline over the next three to five years.”  

“The nuclear non-proliferation issue — something System A has treated as a global issue for fifty years — is quietly being downgraded from ‘global issue’ to ‘System A issue.’ System B doesn’t care. And issues that System B doesn’t care about will increasingly be marginalized — not opposed, but forgotten… The nuclear non-proliferation issue is a System A issue. It is a System A internal order established by the NPT regime in 1968 — preserving Western monopoly over nuclear technology. System B is not in this logic. Nuclear weapons make no contribution to System B’s expansion mechanism. They will not let China sell one more ton of steel. They are completely irrelevant to industrial metabolism. So China’s actual position on the nuclear issue is: whatever, as long as it doesn’t interfere with doing business.”  

This sounds like science – military, political, sociological, economic, logistics. In fact – that’s to say, in proof – it’s ideological. It’s as religious as the IRGC word is Islamic; the Jewish word is Chabad;  the American word is what President Trump tweets.

The Chiprop technologists who devised this new word and media “system” have studied American susceptibility to Christian and Jewish guile for half a century. Their study of the impact of Chinese guile on US audiences began with Kung Fu, the America television series of 1972 in which an actor of Christian evangelical descent and regular drug enhancement, played a half-American, half-Chinese monk who defeats adversaries with a combination of martial arts moves and his mind over their matter.

That was a popular fiction. So are ChinArb, Hua Bin, and Jiang Xueqin.

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by Editor - Monday, May 4th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In the early morning of March 4, Sri Lanka time, the Islamic Republic of Iran Ship (IRIS) Dena was attacked by the US submarine USS Charlotte with two torpedoes.

The first destroyed the Dena’s propeller shaft and stopped her dead in the water.  Her position was at coordinates 6.0073 degrees North, 79.8654 degrees East: that was nine nautical miles (nm) outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters;  19 nm (35 km) west of the harbour of Galle, a port on the southwestern coast of the island.

At the 30-knot speed the Dena had been moving, she was 18 minutes from the safety of Sri Lankan territory. Immobilized, however, the Dena captain, Abuzar Zarri, gave the crew the order to assemble on the aft deck in full visibility of the Charlotte, and prepare to abandon ship. As the crew mustered, a second torpedo was fired by the Charlotte to sink the Dena and kill the crew.

The torpedo warhead explosion broke the keel;  the Dena sank in less than five minutes.

Of the crew’s 180-man complement, 32 were rescued from the water by the Sri Lankan coast guard, including Zarri and the first officer; 87 bodies were recovered; 61 were lost. Altogether, 148 were killed.

On the Charlotte, submerged at a distance from the Dena of less than 10 nm (18 km), there was an interval of approximately ninety minutes between the first fire order and the second, the kill order. A close-range film of the second torpedo strike, recorded by the Charlotte, was released to the press by the Pentagon.  

Four men participated in the chain of command through which these two strike orders were requested; decided;  transmitted;  executed.  

They are Commander Thomas Futch (lead, left), commander of the USS Charlotte;  Captain Jeffrey Fassbinder (second left), chief of the Submarine Squadron 7 of the US Pacific Fleet;   Admiral Stephen Koehler (centre), Commander of the US Pacific Fleet;  and Peter Hegseth (right), the US Secretary of War (Defense).

Hegseth announced in a Pentagon briefing  on March 4 what he wanted the public to believe he had done.  “Yesterday in the Indian Ocean, and we’ll play it on the screen there, an American submarine sunk [sic] an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo, quiet death. The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.”

Hegseth was deceiving. He knew two torpedoes had been fired; it was the second which sank the Dena. He knew the Dena did not “[think] it was safe in international waters”. This was because  US intelligence had been reporting to the Pentagon and the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet command that the Iranian Navy had been requesting safe haven for the Dena and its two escorts, IRIS Lavan and IRIS Bushehr, in Sri Lanka, then India, for more than seven days before the March 4 attack.

Admiral Koehler knew because he had met with Sri Lankan officials in Colombo between February 19 and 21 to deter them from taking Iran’s side.   “We stand with Sri Lanka in facing shared security challenges—from maritime domain awareness to countering transnational threats”, the US Embassy announced.  On March 4, the Sri Lankan newspaper Tamil Guardian editorialized: “Did Washington’s Sri Lanka visit precede a secret naval strike? Questions grow after Iranian frigate sunk.”

In the new article just published in the Tehran Times, the evidence of the Dena attack has been summarized and the political implications weighed – for the US and for the governments of Sri Lanka and India, which joined the US in the preliminaries, before the attack of March 4, and in the aftermath.

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by Editor - Monday, May 4th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

“When war and revolution come, remember the long years in which the storm was rising, and don’t blame the thunderbolt”.  

That warning appeared in the Chicago Tribune in November 24, 1895. It was written by Clarence Darrow (lead image, left), then a young city lawyer working for railroads and also for unions in the years which followed the bitter, violent battles for limited work hours and higher wages. The Chicago union struggle initiated the May Day strike for protest and celebration between 1881 and 1886.

Today the US is one of the few countries in the world not to recognize the holiday, moving “Labour Day” from the spring to the fall to erase the history.  Darrow (1857-1938) was to become the greatest courtroom lawyer in American history; today he is almost forgotten. He remains one of my three American heroes (the others are Ted Hall and Muhammad Ali).

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by Editor - Saturday, May 2nd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

It was recently discovered that President Donald Trump’s group of warmakers against Iran are so corrupt that they are placing lucrative wagers on US military attacks, the targets and timing of which they know in advance because they are deciding them and have seen the top-secret  orders.

Russians tracking the evidence of this corruption on Polymarket, a New York-based crypto bookmaker, can operationalize the data they collect on the insider betting in order to defend against the attacks, or bet their own money, or both.

The Americans are making more money, however, than the Russians. President Vladimir Putin’s runner and betting broker, Kirill Dmitriev, has so far failed to win a single wager on the corruption of his Washington counterparts, Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Also, Dmitriev’s (and the President’s) betting pattern is so predictable that its failure is worth betting on;  the timing and the targets Dmitriev frames for bettors in his daily tweet stream.

In war, predictability of this kind is weakness. In betting, predictability is an asset for the bettors but only if the bookmakers and oddsmakers don’t have access to the secrets.

Polymarket  is an investment speculation and betting operation of a Jewish entrepreneur in Manhattan named Shayne Coplan; he claims to have a current capital valuation of $9 billion. Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in Polymarket and advisor to Coplan.  

Polymarket’s trading turnover has jumped from $9 billion for the year of 2024  to almost $26 billion in the month of March 2026. It hit a record daily volume of $425 million on February 28, the day the US and Israel launched the new war against Iran. Since then an estimated $2 billion has been bet through Polymarket and other bookmakers on this war.    

This is how Americans in the Trump regime can be defeated in war but make money at the same time.  

The bigger profit for Trump, however, is in betting on the valuation of Polymarket if and when its shares are listed on a US exchange and a new market capitalization formed. In two years, that capital value target has gone from $350 million to $15 billion.  For Trump and these bettors the time is running out – two years to the presidential succession election in which Donald Trump Jr is a candidate, but only six months to the Congressional election which threatens an impeachment majority aimed at the criminality of the Trump regime.

And what is the biggest no-loss wager Trump, Coplan,  and their co-investors can run before then?  That’s the day and time when Israel launches nuclear weapons against Iran.

In the new podcast with Jamarl Thomas, we spell out the evidence of the unreadiness of Putin and his advisors – Yury Ushakov, Kirill Dmitriev, Elvira Nabiullina, and the Russian oligarchs – to defend Iran and deter the Americans from their war plans. Part of this unreadiness is psycho-strategic – it’s called  Putin’s Kursk Syndrome

View or listen to the podcast and the word-by-word analysis of what Putin told Trump in their telephone conversation on April 29. This is the Kursk Syndrome in action. It’s so predictable you can bet on it. Podcast live:  starts at -1:25:00 and runs to
-20:28:00. An edited video version will follow shortly at this link.

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by Editor - Saturday, May 2nd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

To understand President Vladimir Putin’s recent public statements on the Russian economy, the Tuapse refinery fire, and security controls for the internet, the question is – does he believe what all Russians know to be obviously misstated and mistaken? Does Putin understand he is discrediting himself with Russian voters as the national parliamentary election campaign gets under way?

The voter evidence is plain to see in both the VTsIOM’s April report and in the Levada Centre tracking chart (lead image, right). VTsIOM is a state polling agency, the Russian (until 1992 All-Union) Public Opinion Research Centre;  Levada is an independent group of Russian sociologists, based in Moscow and currently under state sanction as a foreign agent for having received US funding in the past.   

According to VTsIOM’s daily tracking poll of trust in the country’s political leaders, Putin’s approval rating has dropped from 81% in mid-December to 71% this month.  This has not (repeat not) been accompanied by an increase in voter trust in the four parliamentary opposition figures, led by the Communist Party’s Gennady Zyuganov.

This downward line in the polls reflects the loss of confidence which Putin himself has triggered; it isn’t a response by voters to alternatives proposed by Putin’s critics in the opposition parties.

According to the March 18-26 survey by Levada  —  conducted by face-to-face interviews with a random sample of voters in their homes across the country – “six out of ten respondents negatively assess the current political situation in Russia – 61% (including 52% considering it tense, and 9% critical, explosive), the share of such respondents has increased by 9 percentage points since May 2025. A third of the respondents look positively at the political situation in the country (including 27% talking about it as calm, 9% as prosperous). But since May 2025 their share has decreased by 10 percentage points…”

“More often than others, the political situation in Russia is assessed as tense, critical, or explosive by women (70%); those aged from 40 to 54; the less well-off (65% —  67% among those with barely enough for food); residents of cities with a population of 100,000 to 500,000 (68%); entrepreneurs (71%);  those who believe that things in the country are on the wrong track (89%); and those who do not approve the performance of the incumbent president.”.  

In Putin’s public speech to a session of his economic ministers and advisors, including Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina, on April 15, the President acknowledged the obvious: “Statistics show that economic growth has, unfortunately, been slowing for two consecutive months. Overall, GDP contracted by 1.8 percent between January and February. Manufacturing and industrial production as a whole have suffered losses, as has construction, a strategically important sector.”  

He then told voters not to blame him.

“Yes, experts point to calendar effects, weather conditions, and seasonal factors as the reasons for this negative performance. As I mentioned at our last meeting, we are fully aware that in January this year there were two fewer working days than last year, and in February, one fewer. These are, of course, objective circumstances, but it is clear that they are far from the only factors shaping business and investment activity in the country.”   

Regarding the Tuapse refinery fire in the Krasnodar krai, the Ukrainian drone attacks began on April 16.  Putin did not begin to address the public on what was happening until twelve days later, on April 28. In the mid-afternoon the Kremlin announced that “the President received a report from the Emergencies Minister on fire situation in Tuapse following Ukrainian drone strikes.”  This report came by telephone from the Emergencies Minister, Alexander Kurenkov, who was calling from his office in Moscow. It was then announced that “in accordance with Presidential instructions, in the next few hours, Alexander Kurenkov will head off to Tuapse to personally oversee firefighting operations at the affected oil refinery and the elimination of consequences of the incident.”  

Thinking to reassure voters who for several days had been watching dramatic television and social media reports of the extent of the fire, the acid rainfall, and the oil pollution in Tuapse, Putin said he was sending a subordinate but wouldn’t be going to Tuapse himself. He was remaining in Moscow to meet his health minister, the President of Congo, and visit an emergencies clinic in Moscow.

Putin was also recorded at a Kremlin meeting for “ensuring election security” as saying: “Drone strikes against civilian infrastructure are also becoming more frequent. A recent example is the attack on energy facilities in Tuapse that could potentially cause grave environmental challenges. The governor has just reported – he is there on the ground or was there a couple of hours ago – adding that there don’t seem to be major threats and the people are coping with the challenges they are facing.”  

At the same time Putin made an election pitch at Russian businessmen, blaming the recession on Russia’s foreign enemies. “The Russian economy has for many years already been operating under serious external challenges. This includes a difficult economic environment, illegitimate sanctions, and a number of other adverse circumstances. You know well that in relation to many of our entrepreneurs and members of their families – and not even immediate family members, sometimes in the third generation – these very illegitimate sanctions are imposed. The same is being done in relation to entire major companies. At the same time, the overwhelming majority, practically all entrepreneurs, work effectively and with full dedication, take a patriotic position, sincerely strive to make their contribution to achieving Russia’s development goals, help our fighters at the front, and support participants in the special military operation and their family members. The state also needs to work in partnership with business, ensuring its lawful rights and interests.”  

The widespread Russian voter reaction to Putin’s remarks was reported by Oleg Tsarev, a leading figure in the Ukrainian opposition to the Kiev regime and an exile in Crimea: “It is very important that the president is given objective and truthful information. Now we know that Tuapse will be all right  There are no serious threats. Sad irony.”  

Tsarev’s irony is a political understatement. It’s sad for Russians to see and hear because the President appears not to understand the damage he is publicly inflicting on his own credibility.

So the question they are now asking is whether Putin is once again showing the loss of understanding of how his statements, actions, and inaction are understood in the country. Again:  this refers to the sinking of the Kursk submarine on August 12, 2000, and Putin’s delay at the time, his refusal to acknowledge the obvious while he vacationed at the seaside,  and his reluctance to meet and hear out his critics,  face to face.

When Putin did meet the Kursk’s crew’s families at Vidayevo, the Kremlin reported the six hours in four lines.  What happened in fact was hostile questioning, bitter scepticism of Putin’s replies, and anger at the official cover-up.  Putin, then just eight months into his presidential term, directed his ire at domestic reporters who broke through naval base security to interview the crew’s families.

Read more on the Kursk disaster.  

For public reaction at the time, and Putin’s subsequent recovery in voter polls, read this.   For a discussion of Putin’s Kursk syndrome, view or listen to the new podcast with Martin Sieff and Pelle Neroth Taylor, recorded at 3 on Wednesday afternoon, Moscow time.

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by Editor - Saturday, May 2nd, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

There is a 2,500-year old message about who is strong, who is weak in politics and war, and what the latter can do to defend themselves from the former.

The message comes from Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. Written between five and ten years after the events described, which occurred in 416 BC, it was part of a negotiation between the invading Athenian forces and the Melos islanders, who wanted to remain neutral in the war between Athens and Sparta.  The message was part of the Athenian refusal to accept this neutrality and the Athenian ultimatum – either the Melians surrendered, or they would be killed. The Melians refused; the Athenians then killed all the men, enslaved the women and surviving children; and repopulated the island with Athenians.

This is the message: “The standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they must.”  

The second, consequential sentence is the most famous of lines still quoted from Thucydides. The weak will have to submit to the strong —  that was the warning. Do what we want or we will kill you. Almost never quoted and forgotten, however,  is the first, conditional sentence.

That ancient condition is still the modern calculation. If the weak can devise enough power to resist, to undermine the power to compel, to make the strong uncertain of the outcome of their threats and displays of force — if their defeat and death can be credibly threatened in retaliation, then the strong can be deterred.

In just this way, the “equality of power” can be upset. Neither justice in the outcome, nor the history of the war to achieve it, will always be dictated by the strong. Exaggerating your strength if you think you are strong, and over-estimating the weakness of your adversary can cost you defeat, maybe your life.

This is where the regime of President Donald Trump is today as he dictates terms to Iran.  

President Vladimir Putin told Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at their meeting on Monday in St Petersburg:   “We see how courageously and heroically the Iranian people are fighting for their independence and sovereignty… For our part, we will do everything that meets your interests.”  This appeared to be an unqualified declaration of Russia’s support for Iran to resist Trump’s terms.

Unqualified, however, it is not. At least not on Putin’s part. His spokesman and advisor on foreign policy, Yury Ushakov, Russian ambassador to the US between 1998 and 2008, issued the qualifier: “We will analyze what he [Araghchi] will say, and analyze against the background of today’s conversation the signals that we have received from both the Americans and the Israelis. And then we’ll see what to do.”  In other words, Putin will balance Iran the defender against the US and Israel the attacker. Putin will measure their respective strengths and then choose which side to take in the fight.

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by Editor - Tuesday, April 28th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

April 25, ANZAC Day, is a national celebration in Australia commemorating the World War 1 campaign, ordered by Winston Churchill in London, for Australian and New Zealand (NZ) forces to land at Gallipoli, and attempt to march on the Ottoman Empire capital at Istanbul.  

It has become the equivalent of Memorial Day in the US, which comes a month later. Like the American commemoration, for Australians and New Zealanders it is now meant to celebrate all the wars they have fought. Very recently, the ceremonies include a “Welcome to Country” speech by a tribal elder of the Australian indigenous peoples. They were not allowed to serve in the Australian forces until the numbers of willing whites were beginning to run low in 1917.

ANZAC stood for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. That wasn’t a combination of armies of two independent states. It was a single unit of two colonial divisions formed in December 1914 and commanded by a British general, William Birdwood, with his staff of officers from the British Indian Army.

This was an empire operation: Australia was a self-governing dominion of British colonies in 1901; New Zealand the same in 1907. However, they remained under British constitutional, legal, military, and secret service control until the Japanese Army forced the surrender of the British at Singapore in 1942 and headed southward.

Japan did more for Australian and New Zealand independence than the anti-imperialism of Australians and New Zealanders. By contrast, the Indians, fifteen thousand of whom were landed with the Anzacs,  successfully fought the British to achieve their independence in 1947; Australia and New Zealand followed with legislation of 1986 and 1983, respectively.   By then, however, CIA  penetration of both ruling elites had succeeded in replacing the overt British Empire with a subvert US Empire. And so it is today, with a Zionist twist.

The 1915 ANZAC operation was a total failure, ending in ignominious retreat.

Not only did the Turks drive the Allies off with one of the gravest campaign tolls of the war; estimated numbers of dead and wounded were almost 350,000 – slightly more than half on the Allied side.   The Turks then began the genocide of the Armenian population, killing more than 1.5 million civilians; they followed that with attacks on the Greeks.

The Australian casualty rate was about 15% dead; the comparable NZ death rate was 19%; the Indian casualty rate, 10%; the British rate (including Irish and Newfoundlanders) was 12%.  

The Turkish retelling of the history omits that the principal forces which defended the heights and took the greatest casualties were conscripted Arabs from Syria and Iraq and Kurds from Mosul.  Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk), then commander of the Ottoman 19^th Division at the front, held his Turkish infantry and cavalry in reserve to defend the northward road to Istanbul.   The death rate for these Arab soldiers was at least 27%, probably higher.  

Since 1996, and with government authorization since 2006, descendants of the Ottomans who fought and defeated the Australians have been allowed to march alongside the Australian veterans through the Australian cities. Note that in the state press corporation report of 2006, these soldiers are described as “Turkish”, not as Arabs.

Australia is now permanently at war with the Arabs and Muslims with a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, appointed from the Jewish community by the federal government to represent the opinions of 120,000 Australian Jews in an attack on the opinions of 815,000 Australian Muslims. Together with a Royal Commission currently under way to recommend criminalizing the second group’s defence against the first, Australia is adopting the ideology of race-hate fascism to advance its domestic, intercommunal warmaking and its foreign warmaking (against Russia, China, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc.).

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by Editor - Saturday, April 25th, 2026
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