By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
The yanko and jingo-centric podcasters are being overtaken by the political realism of events. This is forcing a change of calculation in how the apparently powerless can and do defeat the apparently omnipotent without beating their chests, flogging their backs, or putting their adversaries’ heads in baskets.
Bribery of President Donald Trump, his sons and son-in-law, and their associates is also proving its value as a warfighting tactic. Those Americans will always retreat from the front to their counting houses so long as they are persuaded there will be more money to count if they go backwards rather than forwards.
Click to view or listen to the new podcast, produced in Iran on Tuesday evening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4DM3Nu3AhY
Here’s the evidence:
M + V + B = P -that’s Money plus Votes plus Bullets (Blood) equal Power (Powerlessness)
Sources: https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/ and https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/ ... /inflation
The failure of the Arab states to agree on how to deal with the pressing war threats is demonstrated in this communiqué of the Delhi summit meeting of foreign ministers on January 31:
Mentions: Iran=0, Russia=0, Israel-1, nuclear arms=0, BRICS=0, Saudi war with UAE=0, Yemen=0.
The Trump tweet that twitched the Saudi-Pakistan alliance:
Trump cuts Indian trade tariff penalty from 25% plus Russian oil penalty to 18%, one percentage point lower than Pakistan on the promise of deal terms which have yet to be finalized.
The Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) rising across western Pakistan:
https://johnhelmer.net/how-not-to-negot ... more-93324
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Russia and China Discuss Future of START III as Treaty Nears Expiration
Russian ballistic missiles. X/ @politico
February 4, 2026 Hour: 11:13 am
President Putin says his country remains open to strategic stability talks.
During a videoconference held on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed the prospects for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START III).
The Kremlin said it remains open to future negotiations on strategic stability once New START expires on Thursday. The agreement is the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty still in force between Russia and the United States.
“We remain open to seeking negotiating paths to ensure strategic stability,” said Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin’s foreign policy adviser.
On Sept. 22, 2025, Putin proposed to U.S. President Donald Trump extending for “one year” the limits established by the treaty “as voluntary self-restraints.” U.S. authorities, however, did not provide an official response to the proposal.
“Putin has emphasized that, under these circumstances, we will act in a balanced and responsible manner, based on a detailed analysis of the situation in the security sphere,” Ushakov added.
The Kremlin has warned Trump — who has expressed a desire for China to join future strategic arms reduction negotiations — that signing a new treaty would be a “long and difficult” process.
Moscow also recalled Trump’s position expressed in a recent interview with The New York Times: “The document is expiring? Then we’ll make a new one, which will be even better.”
China opposes joining a future START agreement, arguing that its nuclear arsenal is 10 times smaller than those of Russia and the U.S., a position the Kremlin supports.
Because of U.S. military support for Ukraine, Russia suspended implementation of the treaty on Feb. 21, 2023. Since then, Western experts have been unable to inspect Russian facilities.
New START limits the number of strategic nuclear weapons to a maximum of 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 delivery systems for each of the two powers.
On April 8, 2010, the New START was signed by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and then-U.S. President Barack Obama in Prague. It was extended in February 2021 for an additional five years.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/russia-a ... xpiration/
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India Is Expected To Only Slowly Reduce Its Import Of Russian Oil
Andrew Korybko
Feb 04, 2026
The US might be disappointed, but India’s oil imports have always been driven by market conditions, and neither American nor Venezuelan oil is likely to replace Russian oil at scale anytime soon.
The most scandalous part of the Indo-US trade deal was Trump’s claim that “[Modi] agreed to stop buying Russian Oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela.” Modi confirmed that a deal had indeed been reached, but he didn’t confirm the details, while his Trade Minister only reaffirmed India’s long-standing policy that it’ll continue diversifying its suppliers. Its large-scale import of Russian oil was always driven by market conditions, however, never ideology.
The basis for the US’ now-rescinded punitive tariffs of 25%, which was that these purchases fuel Russia’s war machine, was therefore misleading since that was never India’s intent. Nevertheless, the US obviously wants India to reduce India’s import of Russian oil in order to deprive the Kremlin of foreign budgetary revenue that helps stabilize the ruble and fund the special operation, ergo Trump’s claim. That’s easier said than done, assuming of course that India agreed to this demand, for several reasons.
Bloomberg reported that “Daily flows were still around 1.2 million barrels in January, according to data from Kpler. Top executives from India’s state and private refiners previously said that they expect these volumes to drop below 1 million barrels a day — a level that was seen as achievable for India and acceptable to the US.” Accordingly, while the potentially reduced 200,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia could hypothetically be replaced by the US and/or Venezuela, they’d struggle to replace the whole total.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “It takes longer to ferry oil from the U.S. to India than from Russia to India. Currently, transit time from the U.S. Gulf Coast to India is 54 days. From Russia, it is 36 days, according to Vortexa. Buying from the U.S. is also more expensive. Refineries in India would need to pay an extra $7 a barrel…Refineries in India are more used to refining heavy, sour crudes, which are the type of oil in Russia and in Venezuela, but not the light, sweet type in the U.S.”
DW correspondingly reported that “deliveries (from Venezuela) could be impacted by lingering sanctions as well as similar logistical hurdles and increased costs from moving oil from the other side of the world. With Venezuela’s oil output still hovering around 900,000 bpd — a fraction of the 3 to 4 million barrels it produced in the early 2000s — it will take years, stable politics and huge investments to ramp up supplies to satisfy India’s demand” keeping in mind that consumption is expected to continue growing.
The most likely scenario is therefore that India gradually replaces some of its Russian oil imports with Venezuelan ones, but the Venezuelan Ambassador to China told his hosts that the oil price will now be dictated by market conditions and Trump welcomed Chinese investment in the Venezuelan oil industry. India will thus have to compete with China for Venezuelan oil, and the price might soon become higher than Russia’s oil, so Venezuelan oil imports might not replace Russian ones as quickly as the US expects.
The result is that India’s import of Russian oil will likely only slowly decline, the trend of which was confirmed by its Oil Minister in late January (arguably in response to the US’ now-rescinded punitive 25% tariffs), which will prevent any shocks to both the Indian and Russian economies. The US might be disappointed, but just like with India’s import of Russian oil, its import of others’ is also driven by market conditions, not ideology, and business is business no matter how it makes either of them feel.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/india-is ... nly-slowly
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Dmitry Medvedev ...
... says it all.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has stated he is happy to have disappointed liberal factions that had certain expectations of him, and that his sole duty is to serve Russia. The comment came in response to a question about his political evolution during a joint interview with TASS, Reuters, and the Wargonzo project. Asked about what it is like to have failed to live up to the expectations of liberal circles that “pinned such hopes” on him, Medvedev stated that “if these are the same circles that now wish for the defeat of their Fatherland, as has happened before in our country’s history, then I am happy that I did not live up to their hopes.” He added that, ultimately, he “couldn’t care less” about such expectations, stressing that “one must work for the country, not for the hopes of some political construct.” Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, framed the core duty of a state leader as unwavering service to the nation. “The most important thing is to believe in your country and serve it. Not to fuss, not to fidget in front of anyone, not to try to please, but simply to follow your line,” he said.
Here it is. Margarita Simonyan, self-professed "liberal" and whose RT is infested with such cadres described by Dmitry Medvedev, should take a note. People still remember how she was explicitly absent in info space, under risible "justifications", during Wagner's mutiny and how Russian RT started recently erasing 29 articles by now officially charged with extremism 404 plant Montyan. What happened, RT? In general, majority of Russian media are infested with people who are "liberal" and who work against Russia and Russian people. These are Russian media who promoted all kinds of 404 trash as "experts" and many of who are either direct or shadow assets of GUR/SBU.
As Dostoevsky wrote in Possessed:
Our Russian liberal is first of all a lackey and is only looking at how to clean someone's boots.
Difficult to disagree.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2026/02 ... vedev.html
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Putin linked to Epstein honey trap operation? Nope, just more MI6 fake news…
Martin Jay
February 4, 2026
This latest story has broken new ground in the Daily Mail’s preposterous allegations, which appear to have been replicated by other newspapers.
Recent reports in the UK press alleging that Epstein was the mastermind behind a Russian honey-trap operation, rather than an Israeli one, have begun to emerge, leading to mixed public reactions. Certainly, the “blame Putin” tactic for more or less every failing of the government has become a popular resort for British intelligence agencies – a common narrative fed to journalists that fits many situations and is generally low-hanging fruit at the best of times.
But this latest story, which seems to have been led by the Daily Mail, has broken new ground in its preposterous allegations, which appear to have been replicated by other newspapers.
The epic long-form piece openly admits to the reader that the story is based on the wild imagination of the fake news department in the Ministry of Defence (the department that heavily censors all British journalists’ copy before publication – which I have written about before). Yet despite the entire tome being fanciful baloney, the “sources” – who are, of course, not identified – continue to elaborate on what they claim has long been the belief of US intelligence services, a belief allegedly untouched until now because of the former Prince Andrew, who disgraced himself even further in recent days when a vulgar photograph of him appeared on the ground with a young woman.
Really? The US has been on the Putin case for years, but it was just left by the Brits?
When you delve deeply, you realize this is an obvious lie, but one that serves an edifying purpose for the idea being served up as ‘news.’ The raw evidence that the journalists cite is really nothing more than a handful of very inconsequential titbits stitched together to look more substantial. Epstein contacted Putin’s people in 2008 when he got out of jail; he also arranged for a Russian prostitute for Prince Andrew; he had a number of Russian girls working for him, one of whom gave Bill Gates a sexually transmitted disease. No, wait – there’s more.
The only really interesting shred of ‘evidence’ to support the allegations is the link to Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert, who was working for the Russians as well as the Israelis (the latter he tried to blackmail for £400 million, who then promptly had him fall off the side of his yacht and drown). While it is true that Maxwell was close to Moscow’s security services, making Epstein a pawn for their own nefarious schemes stretches the whole story beyond any credible boundaries. For one, the security sources’ imagination hasn’t squared how it is that Epstein had to approach those close to Putin to ask for a meeting in 2008. Surely the more realistic reason for such a move is that he felt his special relationship with Mossad had gone sour, given that they had allowed him to do jail time for messing around with underage girls. Epstein was looking for a new patron for his operation, and the Russians seemed the obvious place to go – or, alternatively, the Israelis wanted to up the game and compromise top Russian oligarchs and aides to Putin, so they pushed Epstein toward him.
And so this new narrative, created by British spooks, is now set to stick in the media – which naturally serves their masters’ purposes considerably, given that it is so widely accepted by leading figures in the intelligence community that Epstein was a Mossad asset. Almost certainly, the Americans have come up with the idea to feed this story into the UK press in a bid to incubate fresh new fake news that will propagate itself naturally around the world. It is often underestimated just how much money Israel puts into the pockets of congressmen and those in the deep state, so this stunt should not come as a great shock. In the UK as well, many MPs in both major parties, for example, receive regular cash payments from Israel, so fake news like this can spread very quickly once a few loyal figures give it their nod – although any sceptic just needs to look at the second line of the Daily Mail piece to see what fiction the whole story is:
“The sources say it could explain why Epstein appeared to enjoy an ultra-wealthy lifestyle out of kilter with his career as a financier, although there is no documentary evidence linking Putin and his spies directly to Epstein’s illicit activities.”
One has to wonder how a leading Westminster journalist like Andrew Marr could even point to Putin live on air when it is clear there is nothing to substantiate the claims. Yet it is worth noting the new trend in British journalism: writing up fanciful, far-fetched stories with no evidence whatsoever, but merely sourced to the intelligence community as a “news” piece. Incredible. The only other place I can personally think of where a big institution presents its own wild, unsubstantiated, unchecked ideas as facts and then expects journalists to write them up as such is the European Commission in Brussels – which does this on a daily basis.
Perhaps someone should let the Daily Mail hacks know that the KGB ceased to exist after 1991? Just a thought.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/ ... fake-news/
