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since the start of 2022 Ukraine has seen
incredible losses to its people homes
and communities during Russia's
Relentless war on the country
much of the world has seen evidence of
this filmed through devices from those
on the ground or captured from above via
satellites today we're talking about the
role of Open Source intelligence in the
war in the Ukraine it's called open
source intelligence it's called open
source intelligence or ocean to help
make sense of what is happening on the
ground during the fog of war the open
source Community has risen to new
heights to verify map and track
incidents in Ukraine it's like this one
the center for information resilience
has created this interactive map of the
war in Ukraine if you have been
following this activity it is likely you
have come across our map which has been
featured by International media in
presentations and at conferences
we've upgraded the map so that you can
search View and interact with the
information more easily than before
and over the next few minutes I'm going
to take you through how the map started
how we verify information
and how to use some of the map's best
features so that you can use it to do
your own research and find out what is
happening in Ukraine as well as keep
eyes on Russia
first how did we get here
in January and February 2022 our team
was tracking large buildups of Russian
military vehicles on the backs of trains
moving closer to key locations along the
border of Ukraine our team and The Wider
open source Community was working
rapidly to verify and find the location
of some of these videos and also using
satellite imagery to identify the build
up of those forces we started to log all
of these in a spreadsheet along with
saving all of the footage in the
original post details in case the
content needed to be used by researchers
investigators or lawyers in the future
our map Grew From what was only a few
green pins the color used to track
Russian military forces
to showing hundreds of pins which each
are videos and photos of Russian
military forces headed towards Ukraine's
borders fast forward to the end of 2022
we have a database of more than 16 000
entries of archived videos and photos
and a map that has been used by many as
a research tool
so how do we verify the content
let's take a look at a video as an
example from the city of khakive
so we'll zoom in on the city area and
let's perhaps pick this video along this
street here now we can see a small
description on our map of this uh we'll
open it up we can see the embedded tweet
the coordinates and things like that
but how do we actually verify that
content to get these coordinates and to
make sure that what we're seeing here is
correct well we can look at the video
and we can see the video here it's
essentially a run-through of downtown
khakive on what it alleges to be March 8
and shows obviously lots of
destruction or damage to buildings in
that street
it's also from account that's fairly
trustworthy as well it's a verified
account uh it's received a number of
retweets no negative comments
but we can also go a little bit further
than that how we usually check this
content is by first having a look at the
buildings that we see here
so what we're able to see is a large
building there
the car appears to turn a corner we have
a large building there we have a low
building here on the left which looks
like quite a quite an old uh nice
looking building with some trees in
front of it
the car drives down the street a bit
more
we have a green looking building there
and it goes past that other old building
lots of interesting looking buildings
there and also a brown looking building
there
by downloading the video and matching it
with the scene we're able to see perhaps
where this would have been exactly
filmed from
so for example we have this building
sticking out here with a kind of yellow
front then we have some trees and we
have this large building here with
interesting Corner sides and kind of a
square top as it drives past we see a
little bit more clear version of that as
we go past here
this building that we see here is a very
similar match to what we can see and we
can even have a look at some of the
photos from this building
and see if they match up to what we're
seeing there
as we can see the building appears to
match the similar color
one of the other ways that we're also
able to verify information is by using
Google Street View as well which in some
places such as City areas is quite
widely available
remember that we're driving down in this
direction and the car shows us a clear
view of the street as it drives down
there as well
for example we can see the balconies
right here and we can even see that
building in the background with the
trees as well
by playing this simple game of Spot the
Difference we're able to make sure that
this video is in the correct location
so what are one of the ways that we can
verify the time that this video was
uploaded or Taken
well there's a number of ways we can do
that one of them is by looking at much
of the other imagery uploaded that day
or ran a similar frame of time you can
see that there's a lot of geolocated
videos present on the map
so for example we can even have a look
at this one here we can see it's
uploaded on the same day we can even
cross-reference that with the original
video and notice that it actually shows
the exact same street area and the exact
same part of that street sign or that at
that piece of material coming out of
that door
we can match that with the grain frame
that we see here on this building this
building here and we know that that's
quite unique it hasn't been cleaned up
yet it's still fresh from destruction
and a strike those two videos from two
separate sources match each other which
is quite useful in verification with the
functionality of the map we can also use
for example having a look at only events
in the frame that we see here
and we can actually use a function to
search by the date range so remember
that our footage was uploaded on around
March 8 so we can have a look from say
March 3 to March 10 and have a look at
those videos and notice we've got quite
a fair bit of footage to look at this
may be footage of Destruction or even
showing some strikes that have happened
in khakive during that period
when looking at how we review the time
as well we also look at things such as
Shadows changes to the land and also
having a look at freely available or
commercial satellite imagery to see if
those findings can also be identified on
that satellite imagery when looking at
where this was filmed as well you can
also double check that in the browser by
simply using the satellite view as well
just to check out what buildings have
been destroyed or what location this is
if you wanted to do your own
verification within the map
so how do we actually use the map and
what are the tools available to us well
first let's visit one area such as
mariupole and have a look at the
civilian infrastructure damage and
Russian firing positions
mariupole suffered a lot of
infrastructure damage during 2022
as Russia laid Siege to the city
how can we see that
we can see that on the map already
photos and videos but a lot of these
pins aren't actually just showing
civilian infrastructure damage
so if we have a look at the categories
section up here we can go to there we
can select civilian infrastructure
damage and we can also select Russian
firing positions and click apply
what this now shows us is in brown pins
that show civilian infrastructure damage
and then these green ones over here are
actually Russian firing positions so for
example we can have a look at
the civilian infrastructure damage over
here so it's a video on Twitter we can
open this one up and we can have a look
at this it shows Russian military forces
running through mattiupole but it's been
tagged as civilian infrastructure damage
because we can see just how many
buildings in the background and from
this Drone footage we can just see the
level of Destruction over Mario Paul
here let's see what the Russian firing
positions actually look like especially
these ones over here
here's one video that has been
identified from this location
and here's satellite imagery that's been
identified from a location near an
alleged grave
which shows artillery deployed near
mariopol
as you can see this is a really handy
research tool for combining some of
these categories of footage and photos
to show what's happening on the ground
for another example let's look at the
location of buckmut which has been quite
popular in the news for its recent
conflict
as you can see for quite a small town
there's a lot of pins a lot of footage
showing different content namely
destruction
if I click on only events in map frame
we can now scroll through and have a
look at what's actually happened here in
Pokemon
by scrolling on the left you can
actually view all the footage through
there what if I didn't want to go
through all of this data but only wanted
to look at the western side of the town
I can use the rectangle function I can
select the western side of the river
here
and I can click view only for that data
just making sure I'm viewing the river
there on the satellite imagery
and we can view that data through here
and see what things have been targeted
we can also see and click through the
categories and see if there's maybe
content on Ground Battle civilian
casualties or bombing zero explosions
and yes we can see that there is some
footage or photos tagged as that
when viewing the content on the map you
notice that when I hover over a specific
pin it shows the content level so
whether it's violent footage moderate
footage or or lot or low level of
violence within it but also a brief
description and the credit and the tag
as well and the date
if we click on that a little bit more we
can see more information so for example
the link type of affected area well this
is Healthcare we also have things such
as credit now this credit gives back to
the open source Community from the group
that either geolocated verified or
provided this evidence or information
and we also link back to the original
geolocations to just give back to the
open source Community that's provided
some of this content
of course all of this content gets
reviewed by those of us working on the
project as well especially from senior
investigators
you also have something called the entry
number that's the entry in our database
so that should this tweet ever be
removed or should it ever be taken down
we have all of the photos the original
link and the original text stored within
that archive as well in looking at
overview Trends and statistics of what's
been happening in Ukraine we have some
really good functions available on this
map as well for example
we can show an incremental time window
so if I click play on this
we can show what has happened in Ukraine
according to the data that we've
verified over time you can see this play
through day by day week by week month by
month and show the activity as it
increases within the country
what you can also do is play that
through a moving time window as well and
select the window of time you want to
show perhaps you want to play this by
month let's have a look at that
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you can also select other windows of
time for example you can see the most
recent window of time or you can see
what's happened in the last two months
according to our verified data
one of the useful added functionalities
is to be able to play that timeline for
specific categories
one of the interesting topics has been
around civilian infrastructure damage
so for example if I wanted to look at
the Eastern side of Ukraine
select infrastructure damage civilian
infrastructure damage and show an
incremental time window I could now play
that through
and what we're seeing here is the
verified data
of Civilian infrastructure damage
playing through over time since the
start of the conflict right through to
the current date of verification
so there you have it this is the eyes on
Russia map brought to you by the center
for information resilience C4 ads and
also the open source community of those
involved with us such as geo-confirmed
bellingcat and other great organizations
and researchers and individuals that
have helped along the way
I should also extend a big thank you to
the many brave people who filmed footage
on the ground allowing us to capture
this information
please do a visit izonrussia.org and if
you have any questions or any further
inquiries please visit the about page
where you can find out how to contact us
as well as extra information