Before the launch of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, OSINT (Open-source intelligence) was used by a group named Girkin, who have taken over social media since the annexation of the Crimean. Before the initiation of war, the OSINT(Satellite) was used primarily by the professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) which was around 3:15 am on Thursday by Jeffrey Lewis, however, he was tipped off by a radar that was taken from the commercial satellite company known as Capella Space showing the Russian troops moving on the road along the Belgorod-Russia (Hauter, 2021).
One of the disadvantaged which Russia had OSINT was Belling cat was used against Russia by the Ukrainians as every Ukraine was documenting the war and war crimes using social media which came as a disadvantage for Russia. Furthermore, the president of the Russian Federation controls and directs the agency of intelligence directly including the OSINT (Intelligence Threat Handbook, 2022). The spread of the Russian side of the information on the war which is backed by the Kremlin has made the backed-up of information that was spread by Russia (KERN et al., 2022). The push and pull of the information are therefore making a conflict among the nations over the usage of the OSINT by Kremlin (Armour, 2022). The user of OSINT in Russia is the Military which derives insight from the publicly attainable source. Moreover, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is well-known fact that the Russian military is taking direct orders from the highest leadership of the country’s government (Ungureanu, 2021). Hence, the use of OSINT for intel by the Russian military is also one of the approvals by the government.
The usage of OSINT was by the methods of geolocations, satellite images, and crowdsource mapping. The information taken from the license plate linked the vehicle to the government bodies, this license plate was used by the social media outlets such as google maps live traffic which helped in pre-understanding the moment of the Russian army on the 24/2/2022. This was also supported by other OSINT methods which are the satellite image for traffic jams (Nast, 2022). Other OSINT tools used were Facebook and TikTok. The traffic jam was seen in the city of Russia, Belgorod which runs towards the Ukrainian border. This traffic jam was 40-kilometer traffic which was caused by the troops of Russia. GPS satellites were used to send the image of the traffic to the google map which indicated that the traffic jam was not ordinary (CNN, 2022). This OISNT was used by the government officials in spreading the disruption in Ukraine.
The impact of OSINT on Russia had more negative impacts than positive starting for instance on 21/12/ 2020 the handler of OSINT known as Coupsure shared some videos on TikTok which shared the Russian troops moving near the town of Klintsy which is near Bryansk Oblast, Russia. This made the account search for Russia by using the tool the OSINT and searching for the bases (Ling, 2022). The negative effect of the OSINT has been influenced by Russia and the world predicted that Russia was going to attack Ukraine, for instance, people noticed that there was Russia has piled and deported several tanks to an abandoned base which was in a radius of 31 miles from the border from Ukraine. Another instance is the usage of Twitter in the OSINT technology is that there was many fights flying between Kyiv (Ukraine) and Khartoum (Sudanese). There was a shipment of the military from Japan and Europe to Ukraine. This extensive usage of OSINT (Twitter and satellite) made the location of Russian troops public, making Russia lag and suffered in the war against Ukraine. The strategy used by the Russians is the massive offensive approach in east Ukraine which is an industrial land also known as Donbas (Potočňák & Mares, 2022).
Ukraine And OSINT
In Ukraine, the people who used the OSINT are both the private sector and non-governmental organizations that are tracking Russia by the commercial satellite images, flight tracking data, and social media posts. Another factor that used the OSINT in depicting the war was the U.S. military and Moscow deployment. The tools used for the depiction of the Russian troops was the commercial satellite, which was done by the company Maxar Technologies Inc. the predication of war was the image taken in the western Russia and Crimea where there was the deployment was of the new units around 350 vehicles parked at abandoned ammunition. Access to use the OSINT (social media) is given to all public which allowed the citizens to track the Russian troops. The usage of social media and compilations of videos have been used in Ukraine as the OSINT strategy. The first instance of Russia trying to invade Ukraine was seen on 27/12/ 2020 when the E-8 aircraft was seen monitoring radar which was operated by the Ukraine army in particular the airspace of Ukraine (Gordon, 2022).
The tactic used by Ukraine is having an impact on the level of operations, Ukraine uses crowdsourcing which is OpenStreetMap, this used the Belling cat system which is a closed mapping system used to track conflicts in Ukraine. The army of Ukraine used and directed the citizens to provide information on the military activity by Russia through social media and actions. For instance, on 27/2/2022, various citizens of Ukraine passed the column locations which happened and transmitted towards Kyiv.
The impact of the OSINT was seen as a very positive effect on the Ukraine story, by various satellite images which made the story of Ukraine more promising and reflected the barbaric nature of Russia for instance the murder of civilians has the deceased body of citizens provided compelling evidence of the war crimes by Russia. This made and convinced the western leaders to take necessary actions against Russia. Moreover, the Russian actions on the Bucha made Ukraine have a positive impact on Ukraine (A. by N. R. CNN, 2022).
The negative impact of the OSINT seen by Ukraine is that the Russians used the bid data landscape and rise the chatter of anti-Ukrainian which was two months before the Russian force’s moment. This created a disruption within the country have helped in raising the vigilantes. A large network was pushing this disinformation. The Russian guided the spatiality influences which increased in January 2022 by over 500 separatist posts. They pinned NATO as the aggressor and the violator of human rights. This marked the negative influence of the OSINT on Ukraine (Baffa, 2022).
References for Intelligence Research
Armour, T. (2022, April 23). The Russian Invasion Highlights the Impact of OSINT – Lobo Institute. Lobo Institute. https://www.loboinstitute.org/the-russian-invasion-highlights-the-impact-of-osint/
Baffa, R. (2022). The Ukraine-Russia War Confirms the Value of OSINT. Babel Street. https://www.babelstreet.com/blog/the-ukraine-russia-war-confirms-the-value-of-osint
CNN, A. by N. R. (2022, April 7). Analysis: Drones, phones and satellites are exposing the truth about Russia’s war in Ukraine in near real-time. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/06/europe/ukraine-russia-war-technology-intl-cmd/index.html
CNN, T. J., Vasco Cotovio, Sandi Sidhu and Oleksandr Fylyppov. (2022, April 6). Bodies tied up, shot and left to rot in Bucha hint at gruesome reality of Russia’s occupation in Ukraine. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/05/europe/bucha-ukraine-russian-occupation-reality-intl-cmd/index.html
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KERN, R., SCOTT, M., & GOUJARD, C. (2022, February 24). Social media platforms on the defensive as Russian-based disinformation about Ukraine spreads. POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/24/social-media-platforms-russia-ukraine-disinformation-00011559
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Nast, C. (2022, March 4). High Above Ukraine, Satellites Get Embroiled in the War. Wired UK. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ukraine-russia-satellites#intcid=_wired-uk-right-rail_c2b9efef-bc6b-44e6-b632-c5a09239ea19_popular4-1
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Ungureanu, G. T. (2021). OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE (OSINT). THE WAY AHEAD. Journal of Defense Resources Management (JoDRM), 12(1), 177-200.
