> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://theroundabout.eu/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Dreck's Diary — Issue 5 - URL: https://theroundabout.eu/drecks-diary-issue-5/ - Published: 2026-10-29T15:46:09.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-29T15:46:09.000Z - Author: Aristidis Myrmidon - Tags: Issue 5, Gossip *By Sebastian Dreck* Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said this week that the United States has not contributed a single cent to the defence of Ukraine since January 2025\. “The US no longer finances this war,” Sikorski said. “For more than a year and a half. We are doing it. Europe.” Poland pays for Ukrainian Starlink subscriptions on Kyiv’s behalf. The same week, SpaceX restricted Starlink service to Ukraine without warning. Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed the United States has given Ukraine $350 billion in military assistance. The figure is false. The actual amount, according to the US government’s own inspector general, is approximately $83 billion paid out as of December 2024, the majority of which was spent in the United States. One notes that both statements cannot be correct, and that one of them comes from a Polish foreign minister who has read the invoices. --- The European Parliament awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the International Criminal Court on 22 October, describing the court as essential to the international rules-based order. The United States imposed sanctions on thirteen ICC officials on 10 October. Those sanctions, if fully implemented by April 2027, will sever the ICC from the global financial system — because the court, like every international institution, depends on European banks and the dollar-clearing system that the US controls. The Sakharov Prize carries an award of €50,000\. One notes that the Parliament has found the more cost-effective form of support, and that the EU’s Blocking Statute, which exists to shield European entities from exactly this kind of extraterritorial pressure, remains unactivated. --- Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia, conceded defeat on Sunday to a student-led movement that has been protesting peacefully against corruption and institutional unaccountability for nearly two years, following the Novi Sad railway station disaster. Serbia has been governed by Vučić’s party since 2012\. The students are running in this weekend’s election on their own list. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán lost power in April. One notes that the two authoritarian models that defined a decade of Central European politics have now both been defeated at the polls in the same year that the Alternative for Germany is preparing its 2029 window. Commissioner Myrmidon, when informed of this by Madame Graticula, was said to have found it instructive. --- Donald Trump said on Saturday that “it is time for Ukraine to have a new president” to end the war with Russia — the same week that Russia struck a park in Kharkiv killing six civilians including children, targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure seventy-six times since Trump’s announced “energy ceasefire,” and received a US fuel sanctions waiver running until April 2027\. The Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev described Trump’s remarks as “iconic and historical.” The British Prime Minister said the last twenty-four hours had been “difficult for Ukraine.” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the situation was being monitored. One notes the distribution of responses, and the distribution of consequences. --- The European Commission proposed in May 2026 to reserve two-thirds of the 2 GHz satellite spectrum band for European operators — a move designed to reduce Europe’s dependence on foreign satellite providers including SpaceX. US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder warned in an interview published 19 October that European companies should be “wary” of “devastating” retaliation in the US market if Brussels proceeds. SpaceX has already warned the plan could degrade Ukraine’s Starlink connectivity. Ambassador Puzder described US technology as “best-in-class products” and said Europe should not pursue “synchronised mediocrity.” The Commission’s proposal is aimed at ensuring that Europe can connect its citizens to satellites without depending on a single foreign operator who, the same week, restricted service to a country at war without warning. One notes the argument the ambassador chose not to address. --- Following a telephone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on 15 October, the United States issued a broad sanctions waiver for the sale, delivery and importation of Russian fuel, effective until April 2027\. The Kremlin finances its war effort substantially through energy revenues. The waiver means European and American companies may legally purchase and transport Russian fuel for the next eighteen months. Trump said of Putin on the same call: “He better damn well stop.” The war has not stopped. The waiver runs until April 2027\. One notes the gap between the instruction and the incentive structure.