The OSINT Landscape in Ukraine (DIIS Talking Points 2)
Copenhagen, 17 September 2024
This research note on OSINT in Ukraine is the second in a series on evidence controls and digital technologies. The series develops points raised at the Danish Institute for International Studies, and of research now part of a larger international project on information and communications technology.
Ukraine represents the first full-scale conventional war to occur within an entirely connected information ecology. This has had profound consequences, from how combatants engage in warfare to how civilians participate, document, and influence the battlefield. Digital platforms are being weaponized in multiple ways, a unique but not altogether new set of challenges for fact finding missions, commissions of inquiry, and other investigative efforts.
Some initial points:
Social media as a recruitment and intelligence tool: Civilians and military personnel alike leverage social media to track enemy movements, identify war crimes, and even crowdsource intelligence for targeting.
Smartphone-enabled open-source intelligence (OSINT): Ordinary people can now document human rights violations in real time, but this also blurs the lines between civilian and combatant, raising ethical and legal dilemmas.
Big Tech and government collaboration: Ukraine’s government has mobilised support through digital platforms, securing assistance from technology companies to maintain digital infrastructure and counter cyber threats.
Spillover effects beyond Ukraine: Digital warfare tactics used in Ukraine are influencing global conflict zones. Armed conflict in Mali, where so-called "videomen" have engaged in “cybercombat”, is an example of this. Additional impacts can be observed among technology innovators and weapons developers, who look to conditions in Ukraine as important cues for business development and at historically analogous conflicts for ways to innovate field-ready products.
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Author Bio: Dr. Michael A. Innes is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, where he founded and directs the Conflict Records Unit. He maintains an active consultancy portfolio as managing director and lead consultant at Craighead Kellas SAAR.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Dr. Matthew Ford at the Swedish Defence University, Dr. Jethro Norman at the Danish Institute for International Studies, and Professor Myrjam de Brujn at Leiden University. Their publications and arguments on Ukraine, Mali, and digital technology impacts directly inform corresponding elements of this research note.
Author Declaration: This research note summarises unfunded research conducted independently by the author. A variety of tools including generative AI were used to track references, collate notes, summarise findings, and suggest an overall report structure. The author manually drafted this research note in its entirety.