23 October 2026, as the history books will tell it on 23 October 2036.

In October 2026 the pressure in the war in Ukraine changed direction. In the first half of the month the US eased its sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027 and waived the main measures of a new Russia sanctions law, including tariffs of up to 100 per cent on major buyers of Russian oil and gas.^1,2,3,4 President Trump also said: “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”^5,6 An ‘energy ceasefire’ he announced on 11 October did not stop Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities.^7,8

After US envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin on 21 October, the Kremlin said Russia was willing to resume three-way talks with the US and Ukraine after 10 November; President Zelensky backed this.^9,10,11,12 newWithin hours, Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv and other regions, killing at least four people, according to Ukrainian officials. Some carried cluster warheads, Zelensky said.^10,13,14,15

Moscow drew the lesson that would shape the rest of the decade: keep fighting, and the concessions will come.

On 10 October 2025 a ceasefire took effect in Gaza.^1,3 Even so, by 20 October 2026 more than 1,500 Palestinians had been killed since it took effect, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.^4,5,6 In early October 2026 the death toll since the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 stood at more than 74,000, according to the same ministry.^2,3

Reconstruction never began, because no one wanted to pay for what might be destroyed again. A generation of children grew up among the rubble without schooling, and without a political solution radicalisation grew on both sides.

On 9 October 2026, hours after the former International Criminal Court judge Navi Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the court itself. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.”^1,2,4 The court called the sanctions an assault on the rule of law. Many transactions with the court were initially covered by a six-month grace period.^1,2,3,5 newOn 22 October the European Parliament awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the court and its staff.^10,11,12

In the history books of 2036, the verdict is harsh: prizes did not protect the court. Trump had already urged member states at the UN General Assembly on 22 September 2026 to “resign from this rogue institution immediately”.^6,7 The next day Nauru notified the UN that it was leaving the court, with effect after one year.^8,9 When the grace period expired in April 2027, banks and suppliers pulled out and the court was largely paralysed.

With that, the last place where leaders could be held to account for war crimes disappeared. What that meant can be seen in Sudan (§ 4.1).

After US-Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February 2026, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz; from 13 April the US blockaded Iranian ports.^1,2,3,4 On 8 July, after Iranian attacks on merchant ships and US counter-strikes, Trump declared the interim ceasefire over.^5,6 On 20 October, according to Iranian state television, Iran’s security chief said no enriched uranium would leave the country and ruled out talks with the US until its conditions were met.^7,8 newThe next day the US sanctioned firms that it said helped Iran’s ‘shadow fleet’ of oil tankers. On 22 October the price of Brent crude oil rose above 113 dollars a barrel, a five-month high.^9,10,11,12

Governments subsidised fossil fuels to head off unrest and put off the energy transition year after year (§ 5.1).

On 13 October 2026 the IMF projected global growth of 3.1 per cent for 2026 and global inflation of 4.7 per cent. That forecast assumed oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz would resume by March 2027.^1,2 They did not, and inflation stayed high.

The IMF also found that just 32 economies accounted for 95 per cent of global growth, down from 54 in April. It warned of an AI-related stock market correction, rising government bond yields and high public debt.^1,2 According to the IMF, low-income countries were spending 14 per cent of their government revenue on debt payments, up from 6 per cent a decade earlier.^3,4 The warnings came true: a market correction hit pensions and savings, and indebted governments could not step in.

On 26 October 2025, after an eighteen-month siege, the RSF militia took the Sudanese city of El Fasher; days later the IPC, the international hunger classification system, confirmed famine there and in Kadugli.^1,2,3,4,5 On 12 October 2026 the IPC warned of a growing risk of famine in Darfur and Kordofan, driven by war, displacement and drought.^6,7 On 19 October a drone strike on a market in Abyei, an area disputed between Sudan and South Sudan, killed at least 153 people, according to local officials, who blamed Sudan’s army.^8,9 On 21 October 22 countries met in Geneva without Sudan’s warring parties. They urged outside powers to stop supplying drones, fighters and money, but no ceasefire was agreed.^10,11

Because the International Criminal Court was being strangled at the same time (§ 2.1), no one was put on trial for starving whole cities. The history books of 2036 call Sudan the crisis the world watched and allowed to happen.

The UN World Food Programme projected that 318 million people would face crisis-level hunger or worse in 2026 and said that because of funding cuts it could help only about a third of them. The US, the largest donor, and others cut their aid.^1,2,3

What that meant became clear in Gaza (§ 1.2). On 19 October 2026 the WFP said that, for lack of funding, it was cutting food aid there by about a third, leaving 500,000 people without monthly support.^7,8,9

In the years that followed, rich countries shifted even more money to defence and energy (§ 1.1, § 3.1), and those who received no help took to the road. In early October 2026 an overcrowded migrant boat bound for Yemen capsized off Djibouti; at least 139 people died, 15 of them children, according to the UN migration agency IOM.^4,5,6

In May 2026 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo a public health emergency of international concern. It was caused by the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment.^1,2,3 By 20 October Congo had recorded more than 9,500 confirmed infections and more than 4,600 deaths, according to government figures: the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record.^4,5,6 newThe virus also reached Uganda and Kenya, with nine cases by 20 October. That day Nigeria confirmed its first case, in a woman who had arrived from Uganda; according to the WHO, it was the fifth country to detect the virus. On 22 October the WHO called the outbreak a regional concern.^{4,12,13,14,15,18,19}

Uganda closed its border with Congo in May, and the US admitted travellers from Congo only after 21 days outside the country, although the WHO advised against closing borders.^{1,4,7,8,10,11} newThe WHO reported serious gaps in funding for the response. In October the African Union’s health agency, Africa CDC, said that more than 700 million dollars in Ebola response funds in Congo could not be accounted for.^7,9,16,17

Faced with the choice between closing borders and helping to pay for the response, the world mostly chose the former. The virus kept circulating in Africa well into 2027, and when the next epidemic came, vaccines and emergency funds were again missing.

The COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026, was to focus on turning climate goals into action.^1,2 newIn October the World Meteorological Organization and the Copernicus climate service reported a rapidly strengthening El Niño; the WMO warned that tropical Pacific sea temperatures could reach an unprecedented 3.8 degrees above average. On 21 October the UN warned that about 50 million people could face more hunger and released 50 million dollars in emergency funds for 11 countries.^{3,4,8,9,10,11} The same day the UN Environment Programme calculated that the world was heading for 2.6 degrees of warming by 2100 under current pledges, and 2.8 degrees under current policies: worse than a year earlier, partly because the US had left the Paris Agreement.^5,6,7

With the summit held in the middle of the fuel crisis (§ 3.1), short-term concerns won out and targets stayed on paper. Around 2030 warming permanently exceeded 1.5 degrees, and coastal countries from Bangladesh to Egypt began arguing over who would pay for protection against the sea.