PhD, Brussels, International Social Policy, EIPM. “Data is like a good joke—timing is everything. Without it, policy is just guessing in a suit.”
Brussels, EU, Belgium
Joined March 2011
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Koen Vleminckx retweeted
On Remembrance Day we should also remember the people whose lives were smashed by war. My great-uncle Harold, captain in the E Surreys, was injured both at the Somme and at Passchendaele: a young man, charming, handsome, clever, whose head-wounds destroyed any hope of a normal life. He died 43 painful years later. It might have been more merciful if he’d been killed outright.
Voor mijn vader was de verbondenheid en de solidariteit onder para’s belangrijk (“me and my pal”), ook in de opleiding. Maar uiteraard was ook het slagen op de testen belangrijk als bron van waarde. standaard.be/binnenland/na-h…
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
President Zelenskyy:
Russians have taken thousands of Ukrainian children from our land. Now, we see something even worse.
Russia has already started sending some of these children, children they stole from us, who have grown up during this war, grown up over these years, into the Russian army. And this is horrible, and it must stop.
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
I put together a list of everything that broke the back of Trumpism.
The gas prices.
The unsanctioned war.
The massive corruption.
The incompetence.
The tariffs.
Playing nice with Russia.
The cruelty against American citizens.
The overly aggressive deportations.
The accidental arrests of American citizens who were Hispanic.
The ballroom.
The reflecting pool that doesn’t reflect.
The Qatari 747.
The aggressive redistricting push.
The threats against our allies.
By the way, I’m scratching the tip of the iceberg.
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
I spent two years working with Stephen Miller.
His appointment as White House chief of staff is among the most dangerous personnel decisions in the history of our republic.
I say that without reservation.
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
With Stephen Miller pick, Trump readies for a battle bbc.in/4iFaKkG
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
When Putin seized Crimea, both Europe and America were quite openly making calls, holding meetings, and sending signals to the Ukrainians who were in power at the time that there should be no escalation – let's just keep things friendly and leave things as they are for now. And we lost Crimea. After that, we lost part of Donbas. But the shooting in the east continued. There was no peace.
People think we were always helped. That is not true. Help started coming after the full-scale invasion, but that was after eight years of Russia occupying our territory. That is a long time to figure things out and understand that Putin has no intention of giving anything back to us.
At one point, some Europeans asked me: “Why do you think that if you withdraw from Donbas, he will go further?” And I answered: “Because at the beginning of the war, he wasn't seizing Donbas. He came to the capital. He seized parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, Kherson itself, and Kharkiv region.” We have retaken a lot of territory, but he had seized different parts of our country. And now they want us to give them something because they are unable to seize it. We may have a smaller territory, less money, and fewer weapons, but we still have more dignity than many others. We will do everything we can to end this war, but it must end in a way that preserves our dignity.
From an interview with ZDF. (2/3)
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
Let’s talk about Kirill Dmitriev.
Who is he, and why the hell is Putin’s sanctioned envoy being welcomed into the White House?
It’s not for peace talks.
Dmitriev isn’t a career diplomat. He’s a former Goldman Sachs banker who has run Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, since 2011. He is a close Putin associate and was appointed Putin’s special presidential envoy for international investment and economic cooperation in 2025. The US Treasury sanctioned him and his investment fund in February 2022, explicitly identifying him as a close Putin ally and describing the fund as an instrument of Putin’s inner circle.
He’s been building financial relationships with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and China. He’s also been a recurring back-channel contact with Trump’s inner circle. In 2017, he sought access to Trump’s incoming administration. His reconciliation proposal reached Jared Kushner through intermediaries. He also met Erik Prince in the Seychelles. This is documented in the Mueller investigation.
In 2020, reporting revealed that Kushner maintained a private communications channel with Dmitriev. They discussed investment opportunities, international negotiations and even the Russian-funded ventilator shipment to New York.
In 2025 and 2026, Dmitriev became a central figure in Trump’s negotiations with Putin over Ukraine. He’s also been pushing for sanctions relief for Russia’s investment fund. And now he’s back in Washington, welcomed into the White House, where Trump met with him privately.
There’s another part of this story that deserves scrutiny.
The White House is giving Melania Trump considerable credit for the Oleshky ceasefire. But Pope Leo had already been working on this humanitarian crisis. He personally called Putin on October 16 to request a ceasefire, humanitarian assistance and safe evacuation. He spoke with Zelenskyy three days later. Cardinal Zuppi had been pressing the issue for weeks.
The Vatican’s diplomatic intervention is documented. The precise extent of Melania’s subsequent negotiating role has not been independently explained. And somehow, the central figure at the White House celebration is Putin’s sanctioned economic and diplomatic envoy.
Why is he here?
What is he negotiating? What is he offering? What is Putin expecting in return? And why is the American president privately meeting with Putin’s representative while Ukrainian officials are left out?
This man isn’t here simply to celebrate a humanitarian evacuation. He’s here representing Putin’s economic and political interests.
Americans deserve to know what is being negotiated in our name. @DittiePE
18 months of Trump’s foreign policy left… Greece and Spain’s Patriot missiles might be vital for Ukraine to bridge that… edition.cnn.com/2026/11/06/e…
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
Hakeem Jeffries on Morning Joe: The American people don't want us to get even. They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive.
We ran on affordability, we won on affordability, and now it's our job to govern on affordability.
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
Bij opgravingen tijdens rioleringswerken in #Langdorp bij #Aarschot in Vlaams-Brabant hebben archeologen van BAAC Vlaanderen #werktuigen van #wommersomkwartsiet van zo'n 7.000 tot 10.000 jaar oud gevonden. Ook ontdekten ze 3 #urnengraven uit de #ijzertijd.
vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2026/11/04/…
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
Roberta Metsola has warned MEPs not to be overreliant on AI in decision-making, as the European Parliament prepares new guidelines for lawmakers on how to use it.
vist.ly/5rcch
Robotica is al lange tijd een prioriteit voor China vanwege de scherpe veroudering van de bevolking. En hun planmatige aanpak, met testzones e.d., werkt. Denk ook aan hun gefaseerde aanpak voor de ontwikkeling van hun auto-industrie.
Deze “Bluenami” verandert wel degelijk veel: Trumps benoemingen kunnen worden geblokkeerd, wetgeving afgeremd, begrotingsmacht ingezet en wangedrag onderzocht. Zijn veto heeft een politieke prijs. Vance en Rubio denken aan 2028, en Trumps entourage aan juridische risico’s.
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
Austin Texas sounds like an Eastern European city that just overthrew a dictator
Koen Vleminckx retweeted
Cyberattack on France’s national blood service (EFS) via its refrigeration contractor Coolworld. Hackers reset freezers keeping blood donor samples at -30°C to a target of 110°C. The thing that stopped it from destructive impact was an on-call technician who noticed the temperatures going up. Frozen plasma intended for transfusion was stored there too. Fortunately nothing was destroyed. This was a cyberattack on a sensitive layer of healthcare. From frozen peas to boiling plasma in three weeks...?
Trump, of course, doesn’t see himself as responsible. :) Any reaction from Vance yet? ;)
"I don't view it as a hit on me": President Trump reacts to Republican election losses and declines to take blame. cnn.it/4ix4yeF
Now, THAT is a blue wave. Karl Rove, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake and other prominent Republicans backing Democrat was a clear sign. But if these elite defections of their 2024 coalition didn’t alert Trump and Vance, these results should. apnews.com/hub/elections?utm…
