Lorn Tusk: I Did Not Slow Ukraine's Drones, I Enforced a Fair-Use Policy Three Years Late

Read the small print

Let me be clear about what happened, because the press has made it complicated. A dish designed for a cabin roof was being flown at 100 mph. That is a roaming offence. I did not slow a war. I noticed a customer exceeding fair use, and I acted like any responsible supplier: I first checked the President's mood.

“I did not cut off a war. I read the terms, which I wrote, and noticed they applied to whoever had annoyed me that week.”

Three years of generosity

My company has tolerated this for three years. Our terms never said anything about offensive use, apart from the part where we said so in 2023. Kyiv mistook patience for a right. It happens with every customer who is never charged the proper rate, and in my experience it ends in a post.

Yes, a later contract connected thousands more dishes to the military network. Contracts are what you sign. Terms are what I read, when I am irritated. These are different documents.

On the timing

Critics note the cap arrived days after I criticised Ukraine for hitting Russian diesel refineries. I call that coincidence. I noticed the speeding the same week I noticed the refineries, and my attention is finite. A man cannot be expected to read the news and the terms on separate days.

Everyone denied it, which is consensus

I said the military decides speed limits. The President said he did not do it and would like to find out who did. Officials say the decision was mine, and that I spoke to several of them first. UniverseY-SI, my rocket-and-satellite company, then called the White House to agree a shared account of events that had not yet been agreed. That is not a cover-up. That is alignment.

When every party refuses to take credit, you are looking at the purest form of collective decision-making. The best decisions are the ones nobody will admit to.

Slower is safer

Yes, the drones now fly slower, and slower drones are easier to hit. I call that a stress test of whether a nation at war has a backup plan to my product. Kyiv now knows what it is renting. Frankly, I should be invoiced for the education.