Strategic Advisory

Reclaiming meaning. Enabling action.

Resilience Lab helps democratic governments and organisations stay ahead in cognitive war — by running meaningful interventions and strengthening people's will to act.

Explore our approach →

Areas of Practice

Insight
Research on audiences, behaviours, narratives, motivations and systems to identify the real vulnerability beneath the presenting issue.
Design
Turning insight into targeted interventions and programmes. These are not limited to policy or course materials, but often take a cross-disciplinary approach — bringing together behavioural science, culture, art, storytelling and technology to create intellectual and emotional resonance.
Validation
Challenge assumptions and AI-generated analysis against evidence, expert judgement and real-world conditions.
Measurement
Test whether the intervention is producing the intended change in knowledge, attitudes, behaviours, and whether it contributes to building resilience.
Scale
Turn successful interventions into repeatable programmes and institutional capability.
See selected interventions →
Training & Workshops
Tailored programmes on influence operations, AI-enabled information threats, cognitive security and crisis response.
Policy & Capability Development
Supporting institutions to develop policies, frameworks and response mechanisms for emerging information threats.
Whole-of-Society Preparedness
Helping governments build resilience across institutions, media, civil society, technology and the public.
Simulation & War-Gaming
Realistic influence and disruption scenarios that test decision-making, coordination and response under pressure.
Identifying opportunities
Stakeholder & Ecosystem Mapping
Shaping propositions
Building strategic partnerships and routes to growth
Supporting pilots, bids, and pathways to adoption

Working with journalists, editors, international broadcasters, and institutions to investigate emerging threats and make sense of them for the public.

Areas of expertise

Cognitive Warfare & FIMI
Foreign information manipulation and interference, including Russian information operations and reflexive control.
AI-Enabled Information Threats
Propaganda analysis and emerging synthetic-media threats.
Russia–Ukraine War & Regional Security
Frontline insight into the information dimension of the war and the wider security dynamics of the region.
Public Resilience & Societal Dynamics
How societies absorb, resist, and recover from information threats.
Example: ITV News investigation →
Framework

A Holistic Approach to Building Resilience

03 Cognitive Defence 02 Societal Resilience 01 Cognitive Resilience

Information threats do not succeed in a vacuum. Hostile actors exploit the vulnerabilities and cracks that already exist within society.

Protecting democracies therefore requires more than reacting to harmful content. It means strengthening the foundations on which hostile influence cannot survive.

Tap a layer to read more

01 — Cognitive Resilience

Foundation

Think of it as the inner muscle. Cognitive resilience is the ability of individuals to withstand and adapt to stress and trauma, to spot manipulations, think critically, and act under pressure. Without it, no defence system is efficient enough.

Examples of RL's work

  • Manipulation and cognitive bias awareness training
  • Psychological resilience programmes
  • Individual resilience assessment
  • Leadership resilience programmes
  • Deepfake and AI-generated content detection training
02 — Societal Resilience

Architecture

This layer is about strong norms, trust in institutions, and shared narratives that amplify individual strength into collective stability. Resilient individuals alone are not enough. The architecture that connects them determines whether individual strength becomes collective resistance or remains isolated.

Examples of RL's work

  • Institutional media and communications strategy
  • Public memory and heritage programmes
  • National films, music, literature
  • Artist and creative sector mobilisation programmes
  • Social cohesion interventions
  • Pre-bunking work combining technology and media
03 — Cognitive Defence

Collective shield

This layer is about countermeasures that prevent adversaries from exploiting societal vulnerabilities. This is what governments do to protect societies from hostile influence, disinformation, and psychological operations.

Examples of RL's work

  • Mapping of adversarial narratives and patterns
  • Strategic communications designed to pre-empt and neutralise hostile narratives
  • Policy development for cognitive defence at national level
  • Training programmes for military, intelligence, and civil service personnel
  • Cross-sector coalitions for cognitive deterrence
Examples of Work

Selected Interventions

Selected programmes and interventions designed and led in complex, high-pressure environments — from national media literacy to wartime information resilience.

Filter — National Media Literacy Coordination Body

Most work on media literacy stayed scattered across different groups and was never treated as unified government policy. We built the first governmental agency, Filter, from scratch, embedded it into the National Information Security Strategy, and led the development of the strategy for the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy.

What it achieved
  • Built a network of 60+ partner organisations (civil society, business, academia, government agencies, international partners)
  • Grew a 150k+ media following organically
  • Recognised by the OSCE and a finalist for the 2022 SABRE EMEA Awards
  • Made media literacy a part of the National Information Security Strategy
UNESCO case study →

National Media Literacy Test

35 questions drawn from real cases — Russian operations on Telegram, fake messages posing as Ukrainian institutions, content designed to spread fear. We put QR codes on national TV, had presenters and celebrities take it live, and carried the conversation into beauty salons and everyday talk. Taking the test became a way to show you could protect yourself and the people around you.

What it achieved
  • 5M+ people reached on launch day — including people in occupied territories
  • 180,000+ Ukrainians have taken the tests since 2022 — some during wartime power outages
  • One of the country's most widely used media literacy assessment tools
  • Driven by partnerships with businesses, media, civil society, influencers, government agencies, and international donors

Keeping attention year after year takes deliberate design. We learned which psychological cues, framings and choices made the difference. Interested to learn more, or replicate it? Let's talk →

UNDP report →

Regional Media Literacy Clubs

Programmes handed down from the top often fail because they ignore what local communities actually need. So instead of telling people what to do, we built a network from scratch — finding passionate local leaders, training them, giving them the tools, and letting them design their own clubs. Some met on Saturday evenings just to talk things through.

What it achieved
  • 3+ years running
  • 40+ people (aged 35–50) taking part regularly in each club
  • A ready-made model that donors and local authorities can reuse

The Unity Lesson — National Broadcast

A landmark nationwide educational broadcast aired on the Public Broadcaster, aiming to reach all schools across Ukraine. The initiative is supported by the Ministries of Education and Culture. The 30-minute lesson equips students with a practical understanding of how malign information functions during wartime, how manipulative content distorts perceptions, and what young people can do to proactively safeguard themselves and their communities.

What it achieved
  • 100,000+ live views across TV and YouTube
  • 185,000 QR scans taking students to the learning tools
  • 134 mentions in national and regional media

"Reporter" Youth Competition

A national competition, built from scratch, that turns high-school students into journalists. Students attend classes, pitch real story ideas to working journalists, get feedback, and compete for a place at an intensive journalism school in Kyiv where they work in real newsrooms.

What it achieved
  • 2,000+ students taking part every year, from schools across the country
  • 50+ media mentions each round
  • An alumni network that reported verified stories from the front line and occupied areas during the full-scale invasion
UNICEF → UNDP →

Much of my work — private briefings, threat assessments, and advice for governments, defence partners and international institutions — stays confidential by nature. If your work calls for that kind of engagement, start a private conversation.

Writing & Analysis

Ideas on resilience, behaviour and influence.

Europe isn't delusional about Russia — it's something else
Featured · LinkedIn

Europe isn't delusional about Russia — it's something else

How Europeans perceive the possibility of war, what is missing between awareness and preparedness, and why societies can remain remarkably unprepared despite clearly recognising the threat.

Read →
Substack The missing piece in Europe's defence debate is not military. It's psychological. LinkedIn The last act of agency: the story of the fourth plane Substack From countering disinformation to building conditions where it can't survive LinkedIn What happens in the information space when war begins Substack Astrology and TikTok tarot: surprising channels of influence LinkedIn The more we generate, the less it's worth Substack How Russia fuels Europe's far right while its own migrant crisis spirals
Founder

Valeria Kovtun

Valeria Kovtun

Valeria Kovtun is a cognitive defence practitioner and founder of Resilience Lab. Her experience spans running a cognitive resilience programme at Zinc Network, strategic partnerships at cognitive defence tech company OpenMinds, and advisory work with OSCE, IREX, UN, the British Council, Radio Free Europe, and others.

Valeria designed and led Filter, Ukraine's first governmental media literacy institution. Filter educated millions of citizens on disinformation in times of active warfare and made media literacy a part of the National Information Security Strategy.

Valeria holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and fellowships from Chevening and the United Nations.

As an Obama Foundation Scholar at Columbia University (2025–2026), Valeria studied the individual, societal, and institutional layers of resilience, which she incorporated into a framework that now sits at the core of Resilience Lab's approach.

A former BBC journalist, she speaks internationally on resilience, national security and democratic agency.

Visiting lecturer & guest speaker

LSE · University of Cambridge · UCL · Warwick University · University of York · Kiel University

Awards & Recognitions

Obama Scholars Program Columbia University United Nations RAF Fellowship Chevening Scholarship London School of Economics and Political Science

Collaborations

United Nations Development Programme BBC ITV News IREX Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe British Council Zinc Network
Selected Appearances & Media

Keynote — Baltic Miltech Summit · opens on YouTube