Dr. K - Kari Odermann

12/10/2026

A war across the ocean. A diesel bill on the prairie.

U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) had just come from Ukraine after meeting President Zelensky. At the Warsaw Security Forum, I think we were the only two North Dakotans there.

We talked about U.S. foreign policy, diesel and fertiliser prices, and how wars that seem far away show up in the cost of running a tractor.

Security, energy and food are one connected system. Distance is not protection.

Senator Cramer sits on the Senate Armed Services, Banking, Environment and Public Works, and Veterans’ Affairs committees, and has represented North Dakota in Congress since 2013. His engagement on Ukraine also matters at home. North Dakota has one of the oldest and most concentrated Ukrainian heritage communities in the United States, dating back to prairie homesteaders in the 1890s.

11/10/2026

🇺🇦 Russia expected to take Kyiv in days. Nearly five years later, Ukraine is still standing. Why? How?

🏛️ The panel “Ukraine: A Nation Unwilling to Bend the Knee”, part of the New Security Leaders (NSL) programme of the Warsaw Security Forum, talked about this. NSL is the Casimir Pulaski Foundation’s leadership and mentoring programme for mid-career leaders in foreign policy, defence and security from across NATO, the EU and Europe’s neighbourhood. They met to debate the hardest security questions.

📊 Most of the room said Ukraine’s national identity and willingness to resist mattered most. But is will alone enough?

💡 The panel’s answer: resilience is not a mystical quality. It is a system with three pillars, according to Dr Khrystyna Holynska:
⚡ Capacity: do you have the tools to absorb a shock?
🤝 Trust: will society keep functioning through the hardship?
📡 Signal: do allies and adversaries clearly understand your resolve?

🎯 Russia attacks all three. Sometimes with AI. 🤖 And the threats coming from AI-assisted hybrid warfare are what Dr Halyna Padalko addressed.

🛡️ The lesson is clear: resilience is built before the crisis, not during it. Dr Alina Hrytsenko pointed out that resilience is a deterrent.

🎙️ Dr Kari Odermann moderated.

🙏 Thank you to discussants Andrea Komová, Patrick McCluskey and Conrad Kassier, and to the Casimir Pulaski Foundation.

#україна

10/10/2026

🦠 10.10.2026: Russia accused Ukraine of developing biological weapons. Now its own laboratories face questions.

✈️ I’m travelling from Hamburg to Warsaw, talking about something else that crosses borders: propaganda.

🔬 A researcher at a Russian plague research institute died on 2 October. Early reports raised concerns about pneumonic plague. Russian authorities deny a laboratory accident, but questions remain.

🪞 In 2022, Russia accused Ukraine and the United States of developing biological weapons. Those claims were never supported by credible evidence.

⚠️ There’s a propaganda technique called “accusation in a mirror”: accusing an opponent of what you are doing or planning yourself.

📢 False accusations become weapons. They spread fear, undermine trust, and can justify aggression, they also may tell us something about the accuser.

🌍 Pathogens aren’t the only things that cross borders. Propaganda does too.

📰 Sources: The Associated Press, The Moscow Times, and BBC News.

28/09/2026

Since 2 August 2026, political content creators who use AI have a new legal label under the EU AI Act: deployer. Not deplorable. Deployer.

I’m Dr K, a political scientist who looks at how information is shared, and that includes the new EU rules on labelling AI-made content.

Share this with your favourite political content creator.

The basics for political content creators:

1. Who: anyone who uses AI professionally, for example for paid content, client work or a professional profile. Living outside the EU does not protect you if your audience is in the EU.

2. Text: AI-generated posts, captions and articles about politics, the economy, security or society need a clear label. The exception: a human reviewed the text and takes named responsibility for it.

3. Images, audio and video: AI content that looks like real people, places or events needs a label, even with human review. That includes AI voices, avatars and realistic AI images of real events.

4. Satire: still needs a label, but it can be less prominent. Political explainers count as informative content and need the full label.

5. When: clearly, at the latest when people first see the content.

6. Paid political content: if someone paid for it and it could influence an election, a referendum or a law, the EU political advertising rules also apply, with their own label.

What to watch for:
Complaints cost nothing.
Screenshots travel fast.
Mass reporting can take down an account in days.

The fix: label it, and use Instagram’s own AI label as well. Two lines. One minute. Not worth the risk.

📸 Andrew Harnik, 2016

disinformation hybridthreats medialiteracy

24/09/2026

📅 24.09.2026: Ten serious security incidents in the past month are worth tracking. But the bigger story is what Europe is changing in response.

🛰️ Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, ICCT and GLOBSEC have documented at least 151 Russia-linked kinetic and hybrid incidents in Europe through February 2026. A broader AP tally puts the number at around 200.

⚠️ Five shifts matter: the threat is moving west, governments are preparing for what may come next, and military decision chains are getting shorter.

🔎 Political leaders may also need to assess responsibility before forensic investigations are complete.

🏛️ Europe is building new tools for the “grey zone” between peace and open war, including a proposed EU Emergency Security Protocol.

👀 Want to know if Europe is preparing for conflict? Don’t just watch the tanks. Watch the rules, infrastructure, and everyday systems changing around them.

23/09/2026

👋 What do I actually do all day? I ask experts hard questions about the problems shaping tomorrow.

🌍 Through the CEPA Podcast, I get to speak with experts working on cybersecurity, NATO, hybrid threats, undersea cables, artificial intelligence, China, national security, and international power.

🤖 This month, I have asked what happens when AI becomes a source of strategic power, whether technology can make countries safer, and whether Taiwan and Ukraine can turn technological value into greater strategic importance.

⚡ Could AI supply chains start shaping alliances? Could technology become another source of international power alongside military and economic strength?

🎧 These are not only technology questions. They are questions about power, security, democracy, and who shapes the next international system.

🔎 Listen to the CEPA Podcast and explore the research at cepa.org

20/09/2026

👀 21.09.2026 Look around you. Your country may already be preparing for a major crisis.

🏠 The signs may be much more ordinary than you think. A new shelter sign in a parking garage. Changes to ventilation or emergency access. More attention to childcare for essential workers.

💶 Cash suddenly matters again. Governments want payment systems that can keep working when electricity, communications, or digital networks do not.

📬 Physical preparedness guides are returning because paper does not disappear when the internet goes down.

🚛 And look at what is moving around you. Military equipment, infrastructure upgrades, emergency planning, and dual-use spaces can all be pieces of a much larger preparedness system.

⚠️ None of these signs alone means war is coming. But together, they can show that governments are preparing for a more dangerous security environment.

🔎 The preparations may already be around you. You just need to know what to look for.

20/09/2026

The new US sanctions law doesn't touch the oil itself 🛢️ it targets whoever is buying it.

The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 (named for the late senator) passed Congress before the seven-week midterm recess and was signed into law without needing a veto-proof majority. That's the shift: the old model priced the barrel; this one prices the buyer, with tariffs of up to 100% on countries still importing Russian energy.

Who's exempt? Largely the EU 🇪🇺 most member states now import under 15% of their gas from Russia. And there's a national interest waiver, so the President decides who counts as a "strategic ally."

So who is actually exposed?

China and India together bought roughly 80% of Russia's oil exports in 2025.

🇨🇳 China doesn't want to be told who it can trade with. Expect negotiation, not compliance.
🇮🇳 India buys 41% of its crude from Russia, yet the US is its largest export market, and PM Narendra Modi is watching a Uttar Pradesh election and recent student unrest. Expect India to seek carve-outs and comply at the margins.

And the shadow fleet? Earlier sanctions targeted the ships. This one reaches the owners, the insurers, the ports 🚢 a real attempt to close the loophole Moscow built after 2022.

What to watch for:
🗓️ Xi Jinping's Washington visit on 24 September, this law hands Trump a bargaining chip he didn't have last week.
⚖️ Whether Putin uses the pressure to negotiate or digs in. Trump reportedly needs a foreign-policy win before the midterms, which may make him more vulnerable than the sanctions make Putin.
🌍 Whether BRICS states use this as another reason to accelerate de-dollarised trade.

The verdict: this law hands Washington a much bigger stick 💪 but a stick this size only works if it isn't swung too often. Every use of the dollar as a weapon gives other countries one more reason to build their way around it.

https://youtu.be/gN3e55vz7y4?si=iQTgFkQXHhkvzBC9

#Демократія #Дезінформація #РосійськаВійна

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19/09/2026

The new Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act gives Washington significantly more leverage over countries helping fund Russia’s war, including the power to impose tariffs of up to 100% on countries buying Russian oil. It also targets Russia’s energy sector, defense industry, and shadow fleet.

That could matter enormously for .

Instead of only sanctioning the Russian barrel of oil, Washington can now put pressure on the country buying it.

Think . Think .

But there is a catch.

America is weaponizing one of its greatest advantages: access to the US market.

And economic weapons have the same problem as other weapons. Use them aggressively enough, and everyone starts developing defenses.

BRICS countries are already discussing more trade in local currencies and payment infrastructure that reduces dependence on Western-controlled systems. That does not mean the dollar is disappearing, but it does mean countries are thinking seriously about their vulnerability to US economic pressure.

So yes, this could put real pressure on Moscow.

It could also become an American self-own if Washington sanctions-maxes so hard that it accelerates efforts to build around American economic power.

And then there is the uncomfortable Ukraine question:

If this works, why did it take until 2026?