Crooked Bough News Round-up

— THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA IS THE BLIND MAN’S BUFF GAME THE US AND EUROPE HAVE PLAYED BEFORE

 

at 9/23/26 1:00am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with Blind man’s buff is an old game of parlour warfare in which the combatants try to tag the blind one, the buffer, and then hide. If they are caught, they are out of the game. The buffer wins when he’s tagged them all out. Hiding in plain sight, making deceptive noises [] The post THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA IS THE BLIND MAN’S BUFF GAME THE US AND EUROPE HAVE PLAYED BEFORE appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— RUSSIAN COMMUNISTS, FRENCH OPPOSITION HIT BY DRONE ATTACKS, BRAIN DEAD

 

at 9/22/26 1:58am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with A new drone has appeared on the European battlefield. With lightweight warhead and jet propulsion, it has almost unlimited range, and Circular Error Probability (CEP) of less than 10 millimetres. When it strikes the brain, it doesn’t kill or maim. It preserves the target’s motor functions but renders it senseless. That’s [] The post RUSSIAN COMMUNISTS, FRENCH OPPOSITION HIT BY DRONE ATTACKS, BRAIN DEAD appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— THE US AND NATO ATTACK RUSSIAN VOTERS – RAISE TURNOUT, REDUCE  OPPOSITION VOTE

 

at 9/21/26 1:35am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with Nothing succeeds so consistently and so badly at changing the hearts, minds, and votes of people than bombing them. It’s a conclusion that the 316 volumes of the US Strategic Bombing Survey of 1944-45  came to about the enemies of that time, the Germans and Japanese, very reluctantly.   In announcing [] The post THE US AND NATO ATTACK RUSSIAN VOTERS – RAISE TURNOUT, REDUCE  OPPOSITION VOTE appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— STARING AT THE IMPERIAL SUN IS BLINDING – FOCUS ON KNOCKING THE TEETH OUT OF THE IMPERIALIST SHARKS

 

at 9/19/26 12:55am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with From which direction does the sun come up each day? That was one of the questions in the battery of tests which was used on patients to diagnose the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. An answer confusing east and west was a symptom of that brain disease. The question comes up today [] The post STARING AT THE IMPERIAL SUN IS BLINDING – FOCUS ON KNOCKING THE TEETH OUT OF THE IMPERIALIST SHARKS appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— FOR TRUMP AN OCTOBER SURPRISE THAT ISN’T A RESCUE

 

at 9/16/26 12:39am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with When President Donald Trump blames Vladimir Zelensky for the diesel crisis in the US, he is more than scapegoating the wrong man. He is revealing he has no October Surprise – no peace deal for the Russia-Ukraine war, no peace deal with Iran, no peace deal with Yemen – to save [] The post FOR TRUMP AN OCTOBER SURPRISE THAT ISN’T A RESCUE appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— POST CARD FROM DELHI – IF BRICS IS ANTI-IMPERIALIST, WHO ARE THE CLOWN, THE ELEPHANT AND THE RINGMASTER NOW THAT THE CIRCUS HAS MOVED ON?

 

at 9/14/26 7:37am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with Summit meetings are always circus rings. BRICS India 2026, just concluded in Delhi, is no different from BRICS Brasil 2025 nor from BRICS China 2027. There’s another political constant. The BRICS summit leaders, especially President Vladimir Putin, President Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aim to be a combination of [] The post POST CARD FROM DELHI – IF BRICS IS ANTI-IMPERIALIST, WHO ARE THE CLOWN, THE ELEPHANT AND THE RINGMASTER NOW THAT THE CIRCUS HAS MOVED ON? appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— BRICS AND THE “IMPERIALIST SHARKS” — HOW TO READ THE BRICS SUMMIT DECISIONS ON THE US EMPIRE WARS BEING LOST AGAINST RUSSIA, IRAN, AND YEMEN

 

at 9/12/26 11:29pm

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with Starting at 10:30 Moscow, Athens and Beirut time on Saturday morning, Dimitri Lascaris hosted the Reason2Resist podcast to discuss the Ansarallah defeat of Saudi air and ground forces at the Bab el Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, the Saudi coastline, and Egypt’s lifeline, the Suez Canal. Not since the [] The post BRICS AND THE “IMPERIALIST SHARKS” HOW TO READ THE BRICS SUMMIT DECISIONS ON THE US EMPIRE WARS BEING LOST AGAINST RUSSIA, IRAN, AND YEMEN appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— JAMARL THOMAS OPENS THE US MORNING WITH THE SMALL PRINT OF THE BRICS RESPONSE TO US WARS AGAINST IRAN AND RUSSIA, THE SAUDI WAR AGAINST YEMEN, AND US MILITARIZATION OF THE INDIAN OCEAN

 

at 9/11/26 8:15am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with Broadcast live today from 07:15 Eastern Time (US), click to watch or listen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIk6TSrF-OA  The two documents that are now the pointers for the outcome of the BRICS summit on Saturday are the Foreign Ministers’ statement of last May 15 and the Bishkek Declaration of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), issued [] The post JAMARL THOMAS OPENS THE US MORNING WITH THE SMALL PRINT OF THE BRICS RESPONSE TO US WARS AGAINST IRAN AND RUSSIA, THE SAUDI WAR AGAINST YEMEN, AND US MILITARIZATION OF THE INDIAN OCEAN appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— UNABASHED!  THE INDIAN QUESTIONS FOR PRESIDENT PUTIN AS THE CURTAIN GOES UP AT THE BRICS SUMMIT

 

at 9/11/26 1:09am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with The editor-in-chief of The Sunday Guardian, Joyeeta Basu, asks the questions which the BRICS summit meetings over the weekend will answer in a consensus communiqué; in photo displays of smiles and handholding; and in bilateral meetings whose substance will be a combination of smokescreen and confidences to defend against Private Enemy [] The post UNABASHED!  THE INDIAN QUESTIONS FOR PRESIDENT PUTIN AS THE CURTAIN GOES UP AT THE BRICS SUMMIT appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— THE TWO PERMANENT WARS THE RUSSIAN ARMY IS FIGHTING  – AGAINST THE US & NATO, AGAINST THE RUSSIAN OLIGARCHY’S ALLIES IN THE US & NATO

 

at 9/9/26 11:22pm

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with The men of the Russian military forces doing the fighting on the Ukraine front are defending far more unequally distributed Russian national income and asset wealth on the home front than the Red Army which fought and won the war against Germany and Japan, the Great Patriotic War of 1939-45. Moreover, [] The post THE TWO PERMANENT WARS THE RUSSIAN ARMY IS FIGHTING  – AGAINST THE US & NATO, AGAINST THE RUSSIAN OLIGARCHY’S ALLIES IN THE US & NATO appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— “TALK SOFTLY, CARRY BIG STICK, AND YOU WILL GO FAR” – BUT NOT TO A MEETING WITH PUTIN AND ZELENSKY, MODI AND XI

 

at 9/8/26 10:59pm

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with In his late afternoon telephone call with President Donald Trump (lead image, right), President Vladimir Putin has followed the old Theodore Roosevelt (left) line. But he stopped short of agreeing to a summit meeting with Trump and Vladimir Zelensky in Delhi this coming weekend. Kirill Dmitriev disguises the failure with a [] The post “TALK SOFTLY, CARRY BIG STICK, AND YOU WILL GO FAR” – BUT NOT TO A MEETING WITH PUTIN AND ZELENSKY, MODI AND XI appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— THE LEIPZIG AIRPORT DRONE INCIDENT – NEWLY PUBLISHED SOURCE ACCOUNT

 

at 9/8/26 1:12am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with Photographs published in the German media, then republished in the press of the NATO allies, of an explosive device allegedly planted by Russian agents at Leipzig airport last month “do not correspond to what airport employees initially saw at the scene…the drone itself was a small, inexpensive consumer device intended primarily [] The post THE LEIPZIG AIRPORT DRONE INCIDENT – NEWLY PUBLISHED SOURCE ACCOUNT appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— WHO AM I? ANSWERING ALL THE QUESTIONS PODCAST COMMENTERS WEREN’T AFRAID TO GUESS AT BUT DIDN’T WANT TO CHECK

 

at 9/7/26 1:15am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with When it comes to truth-telling at the standard of traditional investigative journalism, podcasting and podcasters don’t not by a long chalk. That’s an expression which appeared in British pubs long ago when darts players kept score by scratching it in chalk on an old slate tile. A long chalk was [] The post WHO AM I? ANSWERING ALL THE QUESTIONS PODCAST COMMENTERS WEREN’T AFRAID TO GUESS AT BUT DIDN’T WANT TO CHECK appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— TRUST IN THE SHARKS OF IMPERIALISM — WHAT GORBACHEV SAID, WHAT PUTIN IS SAYING

 

at 9/7/26 12:32am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with When an enemy sworn to destroy Russia comes to the Kremlin for talks, the record of what exactly was said can remain secret for so long that whatever calculations and interpretations were made at the time – by the enemy and by the Russian side – are no longer remembered and [] The post TRUST IN THE SHARKS OF IMPERIALISM WHAT GORBACHEV SAID, WHAT PUTIN IS SAYING appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— RUSSIAN HONOUR DOESN’T TAKE A VACATION IN AUGUST

 

at 8/25/26 1:37pm

On August 24, 1991, Marshal Sergei Fyodorovich Akhromeyev committed suicide. He had returned from his holiday at Sochi responding to the attempted removal of Mikhail Gorbachev from power. According to the reports of the time, he hanged himself in his Kremlin office, leaving behind a note. One version of what it said was: “I cannot [] The post RUSSIAN HONOUR DOESN’T TAKE A VACATION IN AUGUST appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— “IT IS RUSSIA’S TREATY DUTY TO DO FOR IRAN TO DO TO US FORCES WHAT TRUMP HAS TOLD PUTIN TO STOP” — THE TEHRAN TIMES INTERVIEW

 

at 8/2/26 12:37am

By John Helmer, Moscow, with Sahar Dadjoo, Teheran@bears_with In an interview and video recorded in Teheran on Wednesday, Sahar Dadjoo asked the questions and these are the answers published on August 1. In focus is the US-guided Ukrainian drone attack on the Iranian cargo vessel Ana in the Caspian Sea which occurred on July 25. [] The post “IT IS RUSSIA’S TREATY DUTY TO DO FOR IRAN TO DO TO US FORCES WHAT TRUMP HAS TOLD PUTIN TO STOP” THE TEHRAN TIMES INTERVIEW appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— TRUMP’S BOILING FROG STRATEGY AGAINST PUTIN

 

at 8/2/26 12:27am

By Oleg Tsarev, Crimea, introduced by John Helmer@bears_with The current restrictions imposed by the Trump Administration and NATO on Ukrainian drone and missile strike options against Russia reflect a strategy known as boiling the frog in warm water. This is a strategy of gradual escalation, the timing of which is measured stepwise – so western [] The post TRUMP’S BOILING FROG STRATEGY AGAINST PUTIN appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— DOWNING TOOLS FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST

 

at 8/1/26 7:53am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with Every year at this time, as certain and regular as the Moscow city administration turns off the central hotwater boilers for cleaning, we close the office, postpone the flow of Dances with Bears, suspend the tweets. But just as surely as Muscovites install electric water heaters for substitutes during the profilaktika(профилактика [] The post DOWNING TOOLS FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— MICHAEL NEEDHAM – THE WHITE HOUSE HACK TELLS ALL

 

at 8/1/26 3:30am

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with The appearance this week of an unrecognized man (lead images, top right, bottom 2nd from right) standing next to General Dan Caine and behind Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is a signal that the days of President Donald Trump as peacemaker are [] The post MICHAEL NEEDHAM – THE WHITE HOUSE HACK TELLS ALL appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— JOHN MEARSHEIMER IS TRYING TO KILL RUSSIA WITH KINDESS  — SOFT POWER EQUALS HARD HEAD EQUALS WRONGHEAD

 

at 7/30/26 10:35pm

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with It doesn’t take much time to compile from the works of John Mearsheimer a file of his mistakes of prediction, miscalculations of US and Ukrainian operations, and strategic misjudgements about the US war against Russia in Europe. And yet, despite the plainness of this record, Mearsheimer is treated as a valuable [] The post JOHN MEARSHEIMER IS TRYING TO KILL RUSSIA WITH KINDESS   SOFT POWER EQUALS HARD HEAD EQUALS WRONGHEAD appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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— MOSCOW BELIEVES IN SUCCESSION BUT NOT IN TEARS

 

at 7/30/26 9:37pm

By John Helmer, Moscow@bears_with As tactics for warfighting against Russia go, drones are a new one, and if measured by Russian public opinion, they are more effective for the time being than old tactics like Alexei Navalny-type operations, or Trojan Horses like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, or Fifth Columnists like Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina and the [] The post MOSCOW BELIEVES IN SUCCESSION BUT NOT IN TEARS appeared first on Dances With Bears.

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As of 9/23/26 2:09pm. Last new 9/23/26 2:10am.