Ukraine and Reliable Information

Getting reliable information in a time of war is not easy. When the warring parties include a national leader skilled at deploying misinformation, it becomes even more difficult. Videos, texts, images and voices can all be manipulated to obfuscate what is really happening. This is where Bellingcat provides a great service.

If you’re unfamiliar with their work, Bellingcat is an investigative journalism website out of the Netherlands that does open-source intelligence and fact checking. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I was fascinated by their post that highlighted a tool that indicates where military radar units are operating.

The new Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map on their website (crowdsourced by Centre for Information Resilience) documents and verifies “significant incidents during the conflict in Ukraine,” according to the website. Bellingcat is also using its cadre of volunteers and full time investigators to track the use of cluster munitions in Ukraine. These weapons are particularly devastating on civilian targets and more than 100 countries have banned their use (though not Russia or Ukraine).

While information from an active war zone is limited and difficult to trust, the team members at Bellingcat, along with journalists from many other entities, are doing their best to see through the fog that war brings. The more data that can be checked, confirmed and put in context, the better informed we all are, whether the information comes from a war or the more mundane actions of our local governments.