Dr. K - Kari Odermann

08/09/2026

📅 08.09.2026 | Ukraine is becoming a test of how much power China really has over Russia. (Part 1 and 2)

🇺🇸 After CIA Director John Ratcliffe travelled to Moscow on 25 August, the Trump administration hardened its message: no meaningful sanctions relief or economic concessions before the war ends.

🌍 At the same time, pressure was also coming from outside the West. India’s Narendra Modi publicly told Putin the war must end. Turkey said it would work to help bring the conflict to a close.

🇩🇪 Germany then formally blamed Russia for the Leipzig drone attack and announced retaliatory measures.

🇨🇳 But Xi Jinping was also in Bishkek, and China was not joining that pressure. How much leverage doe China's Xi really have and why Trump may need China more than he wants to admit.

🇨🇳 Russia depends heavily on China for trade, technology and energy markets. Beijing benefits too, buying discounted Russian energy while the war keeps US and European attention focused away from the Indo-Pacific.

⚖️ That gives Xi Jinping leverage in both directions. China can raise the cost of continuing the war for Moscow, giving Trump more negotiating power. Or Beijing can reassure Putin and make it easier for Russia to keep resisting.

🇺🇸 Trump’s clock is also moving faster. The US midterms are in November, and his team appears eager for a deal before then.

🤝 Xi is due in Washington on 24 September. If China can help Trump get his Ukraine deal, the real question is: what will Beijing ask for in return?

🌍 Ukraine may be showing us what global dependence on China now looks like.

08/09/2026

If the US mid-term elections are showing us one thing, it's that the influencer era may be winding down. Reach is not the same as trust and creators are getting paid to promote candidates without transparency.
Who (or What) is actually behind the information in your feed?

➡️Read: "Yes, I Use AI. No, It Didn't Make Me an Expert."

Algorithms decide what shows up in front of you, and most of us have no idea why one video gets pushed and another doesn't, what mix of platform design, commercial incentive and political activity is shaping that feed.

That is exactly I am on Substack. The content I make for Social media gives you the three-minute version. Substack is where the truth anchor is, it show the sources, the documents and the reasoning behind it, including being transparent about where AI touched the text, formatted the citations or proofread. AND, where the judgement, expertise and accountability are entirely mine.
If you only follow me in one more place, make it substack.

Read the full piece: https://kariodermann.substack.com/p/yes-ai-helped-write-this-so-what

Subscribe free: kariodermann.substack.com

✅ check the comments for the other platforms

03/09/2026

🔄 UPDATE — PEPSICO IN RUSSIA IN 2026
PepsiCo never left Russia.

📈 THE BUSINESS HAS GROWN
The Kyiv School of Economics Institute’s Leave Russia database reports 19 PepsiCo plants in Russia and around 60,000 workers.
In 2024, PepsiCo opened a new snack plant near Novosibirsk. Some products also continue under new branding: Pepsi became “Lyubimaya Cola,” while 7Up and Mirinda were replaced by Frustyle products.

💰 THE TAX LINK
Russia accounted for 5% of PepsiCo’s global net revenue in 2025 and 6% in the second quarter of 2026.
In 2025 alone, PepsiCo paid $237 million in income taxes to the Russian state — almost twice the 2024 amount.
Across 2022–2025, available annual figures indicate PepsiCo paid roughly $566 million in profit and income taxes in Russia.

⚔️ WHY THAT MATTERS
Russia has raised taxes on corporate profits while reshaping its federal budget around the war. Defence and national-security spending now account for around 40% of federal expenditure.
So this is not simply about keeping workers employed.
PepsiCo is continuing to generate profits in a market where competitors have left, benefiting from some of the market space they abandoned — while those profits generate tax revenue for the Russian state.

🛒 THE NORMALISATION EFFECT
Consumer brands matter differently from heavy industry.
When familiar products remain available despite sanctions and corporate withdrawals, they help preserve a sense of normal everyday life. For Russian consumers, that can make the economic consequences of war less visible.

❓ SO WHERE IS THE LINE?
When does staying stop being about protecting employees — and start becoming about profiting from the market gaps the war created?

02/09/2026

Germany has finally said it out loud: Russia was behind a hybrid attack on German soil.

That matters because once a government publicly says it has been attacked, the language itself creates pressure to respond.

Germany is not the first European country to directly blame Russia for hostile operations. But Berlin has traditionally been one of Europe’s more cautious major powers when dealing with Moscow.

So this is less about Germany leading the way — and more about one of Europe’s last cautious powers deciding the evidence and the threat are now too serious to avoid saying it publicly.

What happens next: diplomatic retaliation, tighter security, or a bigger German role in European security?

31/08/2026

Why this trial is everywhere — there's a playbook. It follows a pattern that security experts have a name for.

🧪 The recipe is simple. You need one fear that everyone feels, like safety or money. Then you add one hot topic that divides people, like gender roles or trust in leaders.

🤖 The algorithm does not care why you are watching. A worried parent and an angry stranger looking for a fight both count as the same thing to the system: attention.

🪖 In 2020, NATO added the human mind to its list of war zones. Experts now call it the sixth domain of war, after land, sea, air, space, and cyber..

👩‍🏫 Dr Kari Odermann studies how algorithm-based platforms can be used to shape and manipulate democratic life.

31/08/2026

Part 2

A CIA director in Moscow does not automatically mean war is coming.

But history tells us the channel matters.

In November 2021, CIA Director William Burns went to Moscow after US intelligence concluded Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine.

In 2022, Burns was used again to warn Moscow about nuclear escalation.

That is what intelligence channels are for: messages too serious, too sensitive, or too risky for normal diplomacy.

But here is the important nuance:

says it currently sees no imminent Russian attack, and Baltic officials are warning people not to overread Ratcliffe’s trip.

The real concern may be something murkier — drones, sabotage, hybrid operations, or a limited test of NATO resolve.

And that can be more dangerous than it sounds, because the whole system depends on Moscow believing NATO will respond.

Rare does not mean imminent.

But rare does mean: pay attention.

31/08/2026

The most interesting thing about a secret trip is sometimes what was not kept secret. Part 1

A C-17 appearing on public flight trackers is evidence. But it is not, by itself, proof that Washington wanted to send a public message.

The aircraft choice has practical advantages too. The C-17 can carry vehicles, communications equipment, security personnel and other support needed for a sensitive senior-level visit. It also has defensive systems designed for operating in higher-risk environments.

That is why works best when you combine clues rather than treating one clue as the answer.

The aircraft. The unusual route. The diplomatic motorcade. The absence of an announcement. And then, later, confirmation that the CIA director really had been there.

There was another important clue: Washington reportedly asked to temporarily avoid strikes that could endanger the journey of a senior US official.

None of those facts independently tells us what Ratcliffe was doing.

Together, they tell analysts that something highly unusual was happening before either government explained it.

That is the difference between spotting information and analysing it.

04/08/2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XURG3OhZG18

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02/08/2026

📅 03.08.2026 | First it was trenches. Then it was drones. Now, it may be online shopping. Ukraine continues to challenge long-held ideas about what a battlefield looks like.
📦 Since 18 July, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly struck facilities connected to Wildberries, Russia's largest online marketplace. These attacks go beyond damaged warehouses. They disrupt deliveries, destroy inventory and affect thousands of businesses and consumers connected to the country's largest logistics network.

⚖️ Supporters argue these logistics centres are part of Russia's wider war infrastructure because modern militaries depend on commercial supply chains as well as military bases. Critics argue the strikes are affecting civilian workers, businesses and everyday life. That debate is now part of the battlefield itself.

🏠 For much of the full-scale invasion, many Russians experienced the war from a distance. Fighting happened elsewhere, while daily routines largely continued. Logistics warfare changes that equation by bringing the consequences of war closer to ordinary people.

🧠 The bigger question is whether disrupting everyday life changes public attitudes. Will more Russians rally behind the Kremlin when civilian infrastructure is affected? Or will more people begin asking why the war is now reaching the systems they rely on every day? The answer could shape not only this conflict, but future wars as well.

📰 This analysis draws on reporting from The New Voice of Ukraine (NV), and CNN, together with military analysis from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

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