With Washington no longer writing new Ukraine aid cheques on the Biden-era scale, Zelensky has been desperately looking for fresh money. The IMF's $8.1 billion programme comes with banking-sector reform commitments, including preparing two state-owned banks for sale. Meet London's Rothschild & Co and its longtime Ukrainian partner FinPoint.
After twelve years of civil war, competing parliaments, and foreign mercenaries, Libya has achieved national unity. Both sides now support a maritime line that cuts directly through Greek islands.
By the freezing breath of the Void, look at this! It is the perfect, grotesque illustration of the rot Irlmaier warned us about, but with the added seasoning of a desperate, petulant regime trying to punch above its weight by strangling the giants from the inside.
Iran is trying to influence US politics by threatening to cut undersea cables, strike AI centers, and broaden the battlefield to Europe. "We have new weapons and new targets", they say.
What a lovely campaign messaging.
Zelensky arrives in Brussels demanding another €70 billion and warning Europeans of a flood of 20 million Ukrainians should he lose his lost war. Signing a peace deal and stopping the killing never occurred to him. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
Ukraine's military Starlink access has been restricted, disrupting drone operations. Trump says it's time for Ukraine to get a new president, while Elon Musk declares: "And so the slaughter continues … Time for Zelensky to go"
While Washington attempts to negotiate an end to the war, Brussels has found another way forward: more accession negotiations, more commitments and more European taxpayers’ money. With peace apparently threatening to break out, someone has to keep the project moving.
Everybody wants peace. The interesting question is who can afford for it not to happen before winter. Yesterday in New York, Ursula von der Leyen promised Zelensky more war support while Trump pushed an energy ceasefire. With gas tight, diesel already brutal and Washington considering keeping American diesel at home, Brussels must know something about energy that the rest of us do not.
Austria’s incoming UN Security Council member Beate Meinl-Reisinger met Iran’s foreign minister on the sidelines of the General Assembly and, by her own account, delivered a masterclass in international law. She didn’t wear the Ukrainian vyshyvanka this time. Austria’s politics is going wild in the international structures.
The Biden administration supplied Ukraine with billions of dollars in American weapons. Donald Trump has now concluded that this may have been an accounting error and says Washington intends to collect the bill after all.
vlgr
Balthazar the Unsupervised
