By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

Mohammed Javad Zarif (lead images) has grown fatter and more swollen-headed since he was replaced as Iran’s Foreign Minister in 2021, then removed as Vice President in 2025.  

In Moscow,  Zarif  is known as a Russia-hating, backstabbing liar who negotiates with deceit and whose word  is worthless. Click for more.  

For Zarif to publish last week an essay titled “How Iran Should End the War – A Deal Tehran Could Take”,   from the tribune of the money establishment in New York, the Council on Foreign Relations, is understandable in Moscow. This is because, comments a Moscow source in position to know, he is “registering his address in Teheran at the very least to tell the Americans to target their bombs and missiles elsewhere.  He hates Russians and someone is promoting him. The US has shown what they do with discussions, plans, ideas through the negotiations,” the source said. “They have demonstrated there is zero or less regard for any idea. Trump is fixated on ‘stone age’  destruction and ‘capitulation.’ If and when he does a ceasefire, it will be so he can break it. That’s a lesson the North Koreans alone seem to have learned and not anyone else. “

This is a guarded reference to the Russian look and sound-alikes in Moscow telling President Vladimir Putin to trust President Donald Trump’s “Anchorage understandings”   and to end the war on the Ukraine battlefield with schemes for US investments in exchange for Russian assets.

Just so, Zarif’s end-of-war plan includes the proposal “to further consolidate peace, Iran and the United States should initiate mutually beneficial trade, economic, and technological cooperation. Iran, for example, could invite oil companies, including interested American ones, to immediately facilitate exports to buyers. Iran, the United States, and Persian Gulf countries might all partner on projects involving energy and advanced technologies. .. Finally, Iran and the United States should announce and sign a permanent nonaggression pact. By doing so, they would commit to not use or threaten to use force against each other.”  

The Russian promoting the same combination of trust in Trump, trust in money that talks through Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner – not yet in the pages of Foreign Affairs – is Kirill Dmitriev.  He too is described by his Russian critics as too pro-American to be trusted.

The Iranian Prosecutor is reported to have issued a reprimand for Zarif.  “According to follow-up and information from informed sources, following the publication of an article in the American journal Foreign Affairs that has been determined to be contrary to national security, Mohammad Javad Zarif has been issued a reprimand. In this regard, the Prosecutor’s Office, issuing a warning addressed to political figures and those with a public platform, emphasized: ‘During this imposed war, figures and those with a platform must not express opinions or publish material contrary to national interests, national integrity, and social cohesion, nor outside the bounds of their authority.'” The Russian Security Council is highly critical of Dmitriev but he is in no danger from the state prosecutor.

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

In the four days between April 1 and April 5, President Donald Trump made a record of the collapse of his mind into genocidal violence which none of his officials can dissuade, limit, control, if they try,  or even conceal. Not the military experts of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; not the pollsters of the White House Chief of Staff; not the lawyers of the White House Counsel; not even the spell-checkers of the Director of Communications.

Between declaring “we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong” and “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell. JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah”, Trump revealed that he thinks there can be no alternative for a state or a people or a god but submission or destruction. Theirs, or his.

In Moscow, there has been silence except for Trump’s advocate inside the Kremlin, Kirill Dmitriev. He has tweeted in support of Trump’s attacks on one of his domestic bugbears, the New York Times, and one of his foreign ones, Europe.

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

By an accident of the calendar, this year’s Good Friday follows just two days after April Fools’ Day.

It is no accident that the Trump Administration has put its Arab and European allies for the war against Iran on the battlefield of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in order to legalize the use of military force (more military force) in the Strait of Hormuz.

In President Donald Trump’s April 1 speech, he announced:  “I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2, build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked. Go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy. And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It’ll just open up naturally.”

He explained what he meant by “naturally”:  “we are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing.”  

A few hours later, Trump celebrated with a video clip of a new US attack on the Karaj bridge near Teheran.  “The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow! IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!”  

The UNSC secretariat is not publishing the text of the Hormuz Strait resolution, fronted by Bahrain, currently occupying the UNSC chairmanship, in order to implement Trump’s“suggestion No. 2” – a military operation to force the Hormuz Strait open against Iranian defence.

Following Trump’s speech, French President Emmanuel Macron went public with a direct attack on Trump’s Hormuz plan. “There are those who advocate for the liberation of the Strait of Hormuz by force through a military operation, a position sometimes expressed by the United States. I say sometimes because it has varied, it is never the option we have chosen and we consider it unrealistic. It is unrealistic because it would take an inordinate amount of time and would expose anyone crossing the strait to coastal threats from the (Iranian) Revolutionary Guards, who possess significant resources, as well as ballistic missiles, (and) a host of other risks. What we say from the beginning is that this strait must be reopened because it is strategic for energy flows, fertilisers and international trade, but that it can only be done in consultation with Iran. So, first and foremost, there must be a ceasefire and a resumption of negotiations.”

Russian representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said Moscow supports Arab state engagement in end-of-war negotiations, but he implied Russia is not supporting the use of force. “We support the adoption by the UN Security Council of presidential statements regarding cooperation with the Arab League. We always take a constructive approach to these documents and view them as an integral part of cooperation between the Security Council and the League… What is also crucial amid the current escalation in the region, triggered by the US-Israeli aggression against Iran, is the calibrated stance of the Arab States.”    

By calibrated, Nebenzya meant balanced – not unbalanced against Iran.

Russia’s deputy UN representative, Anna Evstigneva, told  Chinese television on March 28 that Russia and China are together in opposing Bahraini-American proposals which are “one-sided and biased, because they put the whole blame on Iran and its strikes on Gulf countries – there are actually American military facilities there. We told them from day one that we saw the draft this way. Russia and China presented amendments to make the text balanced. But unfortunately, the penholders, as we call them in the Security Council – the authors of the text – did not take them on board. So, we had to abstain.”   

She was referring to UNSC Resolution 2817 voted on March 11.    Its language condemned Iran but didn’t propose to use force. The anti-Iran alliance, according to the resolution, “condemns any actions or threats by the Islamic Republic of Iran aimed at closing, obstructing, or otherwise interfering with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, or threatening maritime security in the Bab Al Mandab.”

Will Russia and China abstain or veto the new UNSC resolution, and what exactly do the words say and mean?

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

Russian public opinion is swinging decisively in favour of Iran and hostility towards the US and Israel is growing, according to the latest nationwide opinion poll conducted by the Levada polling group of Moscow between March 18 and 26, 2026.  

Sympathy for Iran is expressed by 40% of the nationwide sample; this percentage is accelerating  with time and with state television news broadcasts reporting Iran’s fightback, its successful attacks on US bases in the Gulf states, and unprecedented strikes against Israeli targets. During the June War against Iran last year, by contrast, 29% of Russians supported Iran. This shift in public opinion has occurred among those who said they were uncertain or undecided last June.

The longer the  war continues, the stronger Russian public support for Iran is likely to become. A parallel swing of Russian support for the Palestinians of Gaza occurred following the Hamas breakout of October 7, 2023, as the Israeli destruction of Gaza over the past three years failed to stop the resistance.  

Positive sentiment towards Israel and reluctance to criticize the Israelis,  which continues to be demonstrated in public by President Vladimir Putin,  has been measured this month at just 2% of the country – one Russian in fifty. During the June War, Levada counted 3%; the difference is statistically insignificant.

No European public, no American opinion poll, and no BRICS member state shows such a low level of support for Israel as this.  

The Levada poll also reveals that,  notwithstanding their growing sympathy for the Iranian side and against the Americans and Israelis, the majority of Russians wants to stay out of the conflict.

“In the current conflict,” the Levada report, released on March 27, says, “about 40% of Russians sympathize with Iran, while only 2% speak of  their sympathies to Israel and the United States. At the same time, half of the respondents (53%) do not express sympathy for any of the parties to the conflict. Compared to last year’s events, the level of support for Iran by respondents has increased modestly. In addition, it is worth noting that, as in other conflicts in the region, a significant number of Russians remained neutral and did not support any of the parties to the conflict.”

The shift in pro-Iranian opinion among Russians is concentrated among men rather than women; those aged 55 and older; the university educated; Muscovites; and those who report relying on television for their news. The pro-Israel Russians are mostly under 25, pro-American, and are oriented to internet news sources.

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

The weapon was first used at least forty thousand years ago, not only by Australian aboriginals (lead image, left) but also by ancient Egyptians and native Americans like the Navajo.   Even the Poles are known to have mastered the technology of shaping mammoth tusks and throwing them at people whose meat they wanted to steal.  

In the new Red Pill Diaries podcast with Rasheed Muhammad, we open with the collaboration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) and his foreign minister in the US plan of attack on the Iranian Navy squadron seeking safe harbour for several days before the war was launched on February 28, and before the frigate, IRIS Dena, was sunk on March 4. The evidence is presented of US planning, Indian collaboration, and Sri Lankan delay which combined to expose the Dena to lethal ambush when it was just nine nautical miles and eighteen minutes from safety.

The immediate lessons: Modi’s prejudice against Iran has triggered the biggest over-estimation of US and Israeli power in Indian history; India’s conduct has ended BRICS as a multipolar collective and alternative to the US empire; Iran’s new Hormuz Strait regime is penalizing India in favour of Pakistan and severely damaging India’s economic growth; Indian state elections in April will decide the political penalty which Modi and his BJP party must pay for losing the war they expected to win; and finally, the value to India’s military establishment of Israel as a weapons  supplier, intelligence source and political ally is now less than zero.

The medium term lesson:  Russia is emerging as the only credible force capable of supporting the balance of defence and deterrence in the Middle Eastern wars the US and its allies aim to fight.  

The long term lesson: beware of the boomerang which the US, Israel, their Arab allies, and India threw at Iran because it has now returned to strike them more powerfully than any other in their arsenals. It’s also a stealth weapon which they failed  to see coming and duck.

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by Editor - Tuesday, March 31st, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

The survivors of the US attack and sinking of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena on March 4 are direct witnesses of exactly what happened — not only in the hours and minutes before the attack, but also in the days preceding –at least a week — when Iranian officials were requesting sanctuary from the Sri Lankan and Indian governments; and also in the days following the attack – now almost a month ago — when Sri Lankan and Indian officials have prevented the witnesses from speaking in public.

The story of the plan of US attack and the evidence of the culpability of Sri Lankan and Indian officials was told here, and the Twitter stream which has followed.  

This was not a report on whether the UN Charter,   the international law on surprise attack,   the rules of war and the Geneva Convention code of naval conduct  were violated by the USS Charlotte in the submarine-launched torpedo firing without advance warning to its target; nor whether the Dena was armed or unarmed. 

A US military assessment has concluded: “The sinking of the IRIS Dena was legal under the law of naval warfare, the submarine was neither required nor equipped to rescue the sailors it left in the water, and Congress had every opportunity to stop the war but voted against it. What remains harder to explain is why the U.S. left its premier submarine-hunting aircraft to fly drills  alongside the Dena one week before a submarine killed her.” 

Instead, the Dances with Bears report of March 24, and earlier ones,   were presented to show Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of External Relations, Subramanyan Jaishankar,  had declared themselves on the side of the US and Israel against Iran before the latter launched their war on February 28. In their conduct of the negotiations with Iran over the Dena and its two escorts, before the attack and since then, the Indians have demonstrated they were not neutral.

Their attempts to retrieve this neutrality have followed after —  but only because —  the short war and defeat of  Iran which they expected have failed; and after Iran’s fight-back put Indian workers, businessmen and offshore financial operations in the Gulf states at risk, and stopped essential supplies of oil, gas and fertilizer on which the Indian economy depends. No Indian mainstream or alternative medium has been found which has reported this evidence and discussed the implications of Modi’s abandonment of India’s neutrality.

There has been more public debate of Sri Lanka’s neutrality and criticism of the conduct of President Anura Dissanyake.   In EurAsia Times, an Indian analyst Sumit Ahlawat reported on March 26 under the headline “Iranian Sailors Trapped in Sri Lanka: Tehran Demands Return, US Pressure Mounts — Can Colombo Stay Neutral?”  He reports from an interview with Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath that currently, 252 Iranian sailors remain in Colombo’s “custody” – 15 on board the escort IRIS Bushehr, which was given safe harbour in Colombo, then Trincomalee, after the Dena’s sinking; the remaining 204 of the Bushehr crew at a Sri Lankan Navy camp,  and in a separate Sri Lankan Air Force camp,  the 32 survivors of the Dena.

There remain discrepancies in the official statements and press reports of how many Bushehr crew remain in Sri Lanka.  Altogether,  the Iranian total is either 251;  252;   or 253,  depending on source.  

 “They are not prisoners,” Foreign Minister Herath was quoted as saying. “But that doesn’t mean, give them all freedom.” The Iranians are being held incommunicado, allowed to telephone their families in Iran under strict supervision, but prevented from speaking to the Iranian media or the local press.   In isolation from their fellow Iranian crew members, the special conditions of the Dena crew in Sri Lanka have not been reported.

Herath has admitted there is intense US government pressure not to allow the repatriation of the Iranian crews. The pressure includes the threat to reverse the trade tariff and other concessions which the Trump Administration gave Colombo last year  after first penalizing the country’s exports with a prohibitive 44% tariff.

There has been sharp criticism from the Sri Lankan Navy of President Dissanayake’s calculated delay in allowing the Dena, the Bushehr, and the third vessel in the squadron, IRIS Lavan, to make safe harbour, despite their request before the Dena attack. “ ‘We did not take any prompt action,’ said former Sri Lankan Navy chief, Rear Admiral (ret) Sarath Weerasekara, in an interview with a London newspaper on March 16.   “‘We could have saved those lives also. This has been discussed in the [Sri Lankan] Security Council and yet no action has been taken.’ In the aftermath of the attack, Sri Lanka agreed to allow Bushehr to dock late on 4 March, amid fears it too would be hit.”

There has been no investigation in India of the comparable delay by Modi’s National Security Council. Retired Indian admiral-rank officers have been critical in public of the US for attacking the Dena and for not assisting in the rescue of survivors; they are either unaware of the Modi decisions which exposed the Dena, or unwilling to express the dismay and criticism of Modi which are circulating in the Navy Headquarters staff in Delhi and at Eastern Command of the Indian Navy, which had hosted the Dena squadron at Visakhapatnam between February 15 and 25, before it  set sail on its final voyage.

Because Russia is allied with Iran, providing both humanitarian and military assistance since the US and Israeli attack began, there have been official statements almost daily from Moscow on the targeting of Iranian civilians and the nuclear reactor complex at Bushehr, where Russian technicians continue to work, following their partial evacuation.  Although the Russian Navy frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov participated with the Dena in the naval exercises at Visakhapatnam in mid-February, there has been no official Russian comment on the sinking of the Dena.

The most detailed Iranian comments have come in a 40-minute press conference in Colombo by Iran’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Alireza Delkhosh. He reveals that the first request for sanctuary for the Dena, Lavan and Bushehr was initiated by Iran before the vessels left Visakhapatnam on February 25. That is before the February 26 date which President Dissanayake has claimed in his press and parliamentary statements.

It also raises the question — did the Iranians also ask the Indian Government for safe harbour at the same time?

The Delkhosh disclosure means that the Iranian squadron set sail from the Indian port on February 25 without orders to return to the home port of Bandar Abbas. The Indian Port Clearance Certificate required to have been filed before February 25 must therefore show the planned voyage destination. This document remains secret. The subsequent course the Iranians took southward through the Bay of Bengal may have been extended eastward and slowed down because of the delays in Sri Lankan and Indian permissions.

That delay is the political crux of this story. Its outcome was the killing of the Dena and of the neutrality of the Indian and Sri Lankan politicians involved.

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by Editor - Sunday, March 29th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

No president in his right mind goes willingly into elections facing inflation, war casualties, recession, and hope for investment from his rivals and enemies – simultaneously.

I’m not talking about Donald Trump on November 3, the Congressional election day.   This is about Vladimir Putin on September 20, the State Duma election day.

The risk to Putin is that, if ballot manipulation and fraud aren’t counted, the voter mandate for the Communist Party (KPRF) will be greater than for United Russia, the ruling party, by a ratio of about 35% to 30%; and that the number of Duma deputies representing the opposition parties altogether will reach a majority of the 450 seats. This would put United Russia in a minority for the first time, and Putin as weak as he was in 2000, when the Communist Party (KPRF) held 113 seats.    

In the latest VTsIOM poll,  for example, United Russia has dwindled to 30.6%, while the New People Party  has reached 11% and continues to climb. VTsIOM always undercounts the Communist Party voters; they don’t confide in pollsters. On the other hand, in VTsIOM’s latest poll of trust in the top-five national politicians, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov ranked fourth with 30%, trailing ex-President Dmitry Medvedev (37%), Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (57%), and President Putin (77%).  

Russian vote fraud is not so much if as how big – most experts estimate between 5% and 10% of the 114 million votes registered to be eligible.   Ballot rigging of that magnitude has been well understood by Russian voters since Boris Yeltsin took power in 1991; it is expected still.

The warning signs in the public approval polls have been flashing since last September as the percentages have begun to grow out of the margin of statistical error. From last September to February,  approval for the President has dropped from 87% to 82%; approval for Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is down from 75% to 68%; approval of the Government, down from 74% to 67%; approval of region governors, down from 73% to 69%; approval of the State Duma, down from 62% to 58%.  

In the election-winning, election-losing formula of Votes + Money + Bullets,  these numbers are an urgent challenge for the Kremlin to recover the votes.

The accounting for bullets is this. On the Ukraine war front, direct sources report seeing concentrations for a “major offensive” of Russian infantry and tanks, with heavy artillery and air support, “on the Konstantinoka, Slavyansk, and Kramatorsk directions.” Another military source says this is the Russian response to last month’s Ukrainian counter-offensive in which territory was lost. “Russian forces are now attempting to take the [lost territory] back. I don’t see anything, however, that represents a major armoured thrust. There will be shaping attacks and the same kind of small-unit exploitation, then consolidation, we’ve seen before. I believe that if, or when, a major offensive comes, it will be a drive on Zaporozhye city and a move north to cut off, or threaten to cut off, the remaining Ukrainian formations in the Donbass.”

Success for the Russian operational strategy in all sectors of the front is dependent on methodically slow artillery, air, missile, and drone preparation; limitation of casualty risk by dispersion of men; concentration of numerical superiority by rapid manoeuvre plus deception.   Since last September, the decline in the weekly Russian casualty rates — as measured by anti-Russian sources — has been a sharp one.  Corroboration can be inferred from the  daily Moscow briefings by the Ministry of Defense which are reporting a 10% to 15% drop in estimated Ukrainian casualties compared to December and January; this is a sign of fewer direct engagements and thus of corresponding Russian casualties.

In parallel with what sources believe to be Putin’s tight rein on ground operations at the front, the General Staff is expanding its missile and drone attacks deep into western Ukraine, aiming at the energy infrastructure between Kiev and Lvov;  the railway links from Poland;  and command bunkers for Ukrainian and NATO officers. To most Russian military observers this is attrition strategy unchanged, not a shift to a knock-out offensive.  No source expects a victory parade by the autumn elections.

The election risk to Putin, therefore, is primarily economic. At his March 23 session with domestic policymakers, this is how he called it: “What stands out most is the weak, negative trend in key macroeconomic indicators.”   Putin  meant the 2.1% recession in the GDP measure in January. He didn’t say what the officials  around the table understand but don’t say in public: this is the start of the two-year recession Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has projected to run from minus 2.5% of GDP to minus 3.5%.   

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by Editor - Friday, March 27th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

“Sergei Victorovich”, President Vladimir Putin said behind his hand to his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov (lead image, left). “Do me a favour. When you’re talking to the Iranians, promise whatever they need to keep fighting and deter Trump. But keep it secret. And in public, waffle. Your job is to reassure the Americans we are powerless — you are powerless — I’m impotent.”

Just after lunch on Monday, Lavrov spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who had initiated the call with urgency. The published Russian communiqué said: “The situation in the Persian Gulf zone, which was degraded by the United States and Israel, was discussed. Sergei Lavrov pointed to the categorical unacceptability of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, including the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which create unacceptable safety risks of Russian personnel and are fraught with catastrophic environmental consequences for all countries of the region without exception. Mutual concern was expressed about the dangerous spread of the conflict provoked by Washington and Tel Aviv to the Caspian Sea.  The Russian side noted the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a political settlement, taking into account the legitimate interests of all parties involved, primarily Iran. This position Russia will be guided by the UN Security Council. A.Araghchi thanked the Russian leadership for the significant diplomatic and other support provided to the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the supply of humanitarian assistance.”  

Araghchi has omitted to publish a record of what was really discussed.  

“Pishka”, Putin said to Dmitry Peskov, his spokesman (centre). “When you’re asked questions about Iran, do me a favour — say nothing. Your job is to convince our people at home who vote for me that I know best, and that I won’t be getting them into more trouble than we already have.”

Peskov hadn’t eaten his lunch on Tuesday when local reporters asked him to clarify the President’s attitude towards the Israeli Air Force attack on the Iranian Caspian Sea port, Bandar Anzali, through which Iran and Russia run heavy-cargo ship deliveries in both directions, both civil and military. “As for these reports”,he said, “we haven’t seen them. To be honest, I don’t have any information on the matter.”  Peskov was following  Putin’s order, if clumsily,  because what he said was an obvious lie.   

Four days before, Lavrov’s spokesman had confirmed the Caspian port attack. “The US-Israeli coalition continues pouring fuel on the flames of the war they have unleashed in the Middle East, which could cause this war to spread even further. On March 18, a bomb attack was carried out against the Iranian port of Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea. That major Caspian port is an important trade and logistics hub that is actively used in Russian-Iranian trade, including for food deliveries. The strike has affected the economic interests of Russia and the other Caspian states that maintain transport communications with Iran via that port. The regional countries and the international community have always regarded the Caspian Sea as a safe zone of peace and cooperation. The aggressors’ reckless and irresponsible actions pose a threat of dragging Caspian states into an armed conflict. We once again firmly call for the immediate cessation of hostilities and resuming efforts to achieve a political settlement of the situation in the Middle East, which is increasingly affecting neighbouring regions.”  

In these private moments, deep behind the Kremlin wall, what Putin means to say is that Russia has now gone into recession, and the timing is very bad for the coming State Duma elections. Putin is asking his spokesmen to put up a smokescreen, an alibi for the difference between what the General Staff and intelligence agencies are doing and what he doesn’t want domestic voters or the Trump White House to blame him for.

Instead, he is counting on his spokesman for oligarch capital and Trump bribery, Kirill Dmitriev,  to tweet several times a day on the fidelity of Russia as a strategic partner. “As the largest holder of natural resources in the world and a top-3 producer of most commodities, “ according to Dmitriev a few hours ago, “Russia is well positioned for the predicted and emerging Era of Extreme Scarcity.”   “Russian energy is indispensable to easing the world’s largest energy crisis. EU bureaucrats will soon be forced to recognize this reality, acknowledge their strategic blunders, and atone.”  

To interpret these signals of Russia’s two-track policy in the war against Iran and predict what will happen next, listen to this podcast with Nima Alkhorshid, aired on Tuesday morning.

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by Editor - Wednesday, March 25th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

In the pre-dawn hours of March 4, the Iranian frigate, Islamic Republic of Iran Ship (IRIS) Dena, was racing eastward on the Indian Ocean. From the southwest, a tailwind of 7 knots and swell of 1.5 metres added to the Mowj-class vessel’s top speed of 30 knots. At coordinates 6.0073 degrees North , 79.8654 degrees East, the Dena was 9 nautical miles (nm) outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters;  19 nm west of the harbour of Galle, a port on the southwestern coast of the island.

It was 05:06 local time. Dawn was an hour away. On the bridge of the Dena the clock and speed log showed that in just 18 minutes the vessel and its crew would be safe from US pursuit and attack.

That was when a US Navy submarine, the USS Charlotte, fired two torpedoes. One missed; one struck the Dena, holed the aft section, triggered an internal explosion, and sank the ship within three minutes (lead image, top). Of the crew’s 180-man complement, 32 were rescued alive by the Sri Lankan coast guard; 87 bodies were recovered from the water; 61 were lost. Altogether, 148 were killed (lead image, below).  

In the Pentagon briefing which followed,  Secretary of War Peter Hegseth said:  “an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo, quiet death.”  Hegseth intended to reveal that the position of the Dena was “in international waters”. He did not mean to reveal the US had been listening to the Dena’s communications as it was transmitting, live. The reason the Dena was reporting it was safe was that it was just 18 minutes from Sri Lankan territorial waters.

The order to catch and kill the Dena had been issued earlier. It required the Charlotte to intercept the course of the Dena before it reached Galle — before it reached Sri Lankan territorial waters. The Charlotte almost missed the interception point and almost missed the target. The Dena almost reached safety.

The reason for both outcomes is that the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and the Foreign Minister, Subraymanyam Jaishankar, had refused to allow the Dena to enter an Indian port when Jaishankar has acknowledged the request was made on February 28. According to Jaishankar’s statement on March 6,   also reported by the BBC on March 9,  the safe harbour request was made for the Dena and its two escorts, IRIS Lavan, a landing ship,  and IRIS Bushehr, a cadet training and replenishment vessel,  According to Jaishankar, only one vessel was allowed sanctuary at Kochi, on India’s west coast; this was the Lavan.

“ ‘The Iranian side had requested permission on 28 February for three ships in the region to dock at our ports. This was accorded on 1 March,’ Jaishankar told parliament on Monday. ‘Iris Lavan actually docked on 4 March in Kochi. The crew is currently in Indian naval facilities. We believe that this was the right thing to do.’”  

There has been no Indian explanation and no Indian media reporting of what transpired between February 28 and the morning of March 4, when the Dena was attacked and sunk.

The available evidence suggests that the refusal on Modi’s and Jaishankar’s orders forced the Dena to reverse its course from off the western Indian coast near Kochi and sail southeastwards for more than three days, February 28 to March 3. In that three-day interval, Indian naval intelligence on its position and communications was relayed to the US, on Modi’s direction. The Indians also reported to the Americans the communications they were receiving from the Iranian embassy in New Delhi and from Iranian officials in Teheran.  The two senior Indian officials also added to the pressure from the US and also from Israel on the Sri Lankan Government to delay its decision on the Iranian request for sanctuary, all the while lying to Iranian officials in Delhi and Teheran.

These actions make Modi and Jaishankar complicit in the US submarine action; they are culpable as accessories in the murder of the Dena’s crew. This is an Indian war crime.

The crime is compounded by the cover-up or destruction of the evidence , ordered by Modi and his subordinates, of maps, course location data, ship-to-shore communications,  and the time sequence from February 25, when the Dena and its escorts, the Lavan  and Bushehr, left the east central Indian port of Visakhapatnam, headed for their home port in Iran.

In a press statement on March 5 by the Sri Lankan President, Anura Dissanayake,    and a subsequent speech he made to parliament on March 20, it was revealed that on February 26, two days before the war began,  Iran requested sanctuary in Sri Lanka for all three Iranian Navy ships.

“A request was made to us,” Dissanayake said, “on 26 February, 2026 for three naval ships to visit Sri Lanka on 9 and 13 March as part of a goodwill visit aimed at strengthening cooperation. We were in the process of reviewing this request for approval. On the same evening, the United States also requested permission for two warfare aircrafts to land at Mattala International Airport in Sri Lanka. We took a clear and firm decision based on our policy of maintaining neutrality. At that time, there were already indications of escalating military tensions. Consequently, we did not grant approval for either of these requests. Some questioned why permission was not granted for the Iranian vessels. Had we done so, it would have compromised our overall neutrality. Furthermore, it would have brought a military conflict, which was distant from our region, closer to Mattala and the Port of Colombo. Regardless of the pressures faced, we acted to safeguard the country and preserve our neutrality. ” 

Dissanayake’s admission reveals that the Iranian request for safe harbour preceded by two days the February 28 sanctuary request to India. The Sri Lankan evidence suggests that after the February 26 refusal from Colombo, the Dena sailed on towards Kochi as Iranian officials tried to negotiate with Modi and Jaishankar.

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by Editor - Wednesday, March 25th, 2026
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By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with

A little socialism and working-class patriotism still go a long way among Russians.

This is despite the new, carefully laid plans of CIA Director, John Ratcliffe (lead image, left) to make it appear otherwise,  at least in the western media (right).

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by Editor - Monday, March 23rd, 2026
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