Picture from our 1.5h panel discussion on July 7 in Ankara on maritime security challenges facing the alliance in different regions. Hope we got some of the officials in the room interested in the fascinating world of the maritime 🌊

⚓️🇹🇷 Yesterday at the NATO Summit side event ‚Allies in Ankara‘, Una Berzina-Cerenkova, Nick Childs, Anastasiya Shapochkina and I had a good time preparing our maritime security panel with Latvia‘s FM Baiba Braze as VIP speaker. Its title was „Shadows in our Waters“, very apt!

“Beim Thema Stasi pflegt die AfD eine auffällige Doppelmoral: Während sie den Verfassungsschutz mit dem DDR-Staatssicherheitsdienst gleichsetzt, drückt sie bei Stasi-Verstrickungen in den eigenen Reihen beide Augen zu. Ein Überblick.” - von Hubertus Knabe 🔗 hubertus-knabe.de/das-stasi-pr...

They do address the issue of only a proportion of sightings being actually military UAV overflights though, and they do mention that some of the Danish sightings remain unconclusive. See e.g. their discussion on p.7, of which this is one portion:

⚓ Interesting to see an old acquaintance listed here, the VEZHEN - which was the 4th vessel to completely accidentally drop and drag its anchor over Baltic Sea subsea cables on 26/2/2025 and which also accidentally filmed its accidental dropping of the anchor, so the Swedish prosecutors had no case.

‼️ Lots of interesting graphs and tables in this new IISS report on the drone overflights 'campaign' in Europe. The analysts have for instance attempted to match incidents with the paths of various shadow fleet vessels - see examples ⬇️ 🔗 www.iiss.org/research-pap...

4/ Der Inspekteur der Marine, Vizeadmiral Jan Kaack äußerte sich wie hier zitiert - “mehr Schiffe für weniger Geld“ ist hier in der Tat ein Kernargument. ‘Mehr Schiffe, deutlich schneller, für weniger Geld,’ um genau zu sein - denn komplexe Prototypen brauchen ⏳. 🔗 www.bundeswehr.de/de/meldungen...

⚡️⚓️ Freely accessible source material of this article, published by the US Coast Guard, can be found here ⬇️ www.uscg.mil/Portals/0/Im... ~ Thanks @leif-11.bsky.social for pointing it out!

It may be hard to recall how controversial our research was in 2016's Germany... Fast forward to 2026 and ISPK got officially asked to contribute to the University of Kiel's application to be recognised as a 'University of Excellence'. We got assigned a booth inside a testing lab for hydrophones ⚓

🔱 Of course, I immediately signed up. And rather than being doused in red paint, the conference day ended with a speakers' dinner in the EGV Berlin's hangar, where I got to tell the then COM MARCOM all about the Wacken Open Air's special fascination 🫣 Thus began my contact with ISPK, 10 years ago.

🔱 Last Thursday, my colleagues Johannes Peters & team hosted the Kiel International Seapower Symposium ("KISS") for the 11th time! I was a speaker in 2016, the last time it had focused on the Arctic - and now got to moderate a 🇨🇳🇷🇺panel! Conference website ⬇️ www.kielseapowerseries.com/en/events/ki...

Own goal of the year

Beware, a Russian politician has come up with an unhinged formula for alleviating Crimea’s petrol shortage 🤪

That fish roll in Hamburg was the beginning of the end for the FCAS

Industry self-regulation usually works out great! 🥳

This is what it's supposed to look like! #torille

🇫🇮🏆 Umm... come on Helsinki...! How can one properly celebrate an Icehockey gold medal with Manta shielded from joy like THIS? 😆

Very useful article on types of military AI technologies - open access: 🔓🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1... And great table!

Well, it's not hypothetical, as several Chinese frigates (e.g. the BINZHOU in 2018) have passed through that area en route for exercises with the Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea. You can see the BINZHOU in the background, at the pier inside Kiel's naval base on June 18, 2018. ⬇️ Nobody protested.

It's the same area where the infamous April 2001 🇺🇸 spy plane collision incident took place. Ever since China's decision to move its primary ballistic missile submarine base to Hainan's southern tip, the PLA's robustness towards "intruding" assets has increased. 🔗 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_...

Another interesting piece of information are the maps shown in the video, supposedly detailing the flight paths of 🇳🇱helis "intruding" into China's sovereign territory. In case the region is unfamiliar, take a look at the map on the right - the flight paths would be between Hainan and the Paracels.

🔥🇨🇳🇳🇱 Interesting video released by China's Southern Theater Command, detailing a tense encounter between the Dutch frigate DE RUYTER and PLA Navy vessel 553, (the venerable frigate SHAOGUAN 韶关, in service already 40 years 😮), near the Paracel islands in the South China Sea. Translation of subtitles⬇️

Update: it, apparently and unsurprisingly, a Russian info-op. More here by @bartgonnissen.bsky.social ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/did:...

Aligning threat perceptions across Europe will not be easy…

Interesting interview with Ramsey Faragher, the chief executive of the Royal Institute of Navigation, on the techniques used by Russia to hijack Ukrainian drones 🔒 www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2... 1/

This is why the best thesis defense is a good thesis offense! 🤓

🇪🇸Spain published its new "Asia-Pacific Strategy". At first quick glance: 🔹China is described as the 1st of 3 strategic regional partners 🇨🇳,🇯🇵, 🇰🇷 🔹China is mentioned 83 times; Taiwan (also written Taipei, Taipeh or the like) is mentioned 0 times. 🔹The South China Sea is mentioned once ("tensions")

Rear Admiral Khanna points out the noteworthy speed of construction of the Type 076, “considering that this is the ‘first of class’, large, and complex aircraft operating vessel, built in a newly constructed shipyard”: 🔹Keel laying to Launch: 15 months 🔹Launch to First Sea Sortie: 10.5 months