How Open-Source Investigators are Documenting the War in Ukraine
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2022
⏱️ 56 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Open-source investigations—sometimes referred to as OSINT, or open-source intelligence—have been crucial to public understanding of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. An enormous number of researchers have devoted their time to sifting through social media posts, satellite images, and even Google Maps to track what’s happening in Ukraine and debunk false claims about the conflict.
This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, we devoted the show to understanding how open-source investigations work and why they’re important. Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke to Nick Waters, the lead on Justice and Accountability at Bellingcat, one of the most prominent groups devoted to conducting these types of investigations. They talked about the crucial role played by open-source investigators in documenting the conflict in Syria—well before the war in Ukraine—and how the field has developed since its origins in the Arab Spring and the start of the Syrian Civil War. And Nick walked us through the mechanics of how open-source investigations actually happen, and how social media platforms have helped—and hindered—that work.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | Hey folks, it's Mark here from WTF with Mark Marin and my podcast is currently being |
| 0:38.9 | sponsored by Amazon ads. |
| 0:41.1 | And do you know why Amazon ads is sponsoring because you're a good loyal audience and |
| 0:45.2 | you like listening to this show. |
| 0:46.9 | That's a good place to put ads. |
| 0:48.9 | And with Amazon ads, you can get the same kind of placement and attention for your brand |
| 0:53.1 | or products. |
| 0:54.1 | And Amazon ads can help you reach and connect with new audiences and all of the places they're |
| 0:58.4 | excited to be. |
| 0:59.7 | Whether they're streaming the Premier League on Prime Video, tuning into their creative |
| 1:03.7 | passions on Twitch or streaming their favorite shows, there's no end to the connections your |
| 1:08.6 | brand can make with audiences. |
| 1:10.5 | Head to advertising.amazon.com to find out more. |
| 1:14.8 | Amazon ads, your brand, their world. |
| 1:24.8 | What we aim to do is to try and capture information about those kind of atrocities so that later |
| 1:31.6 | there might be some kind of justice or accountability mechanism we might be able to put this information |
| 1:35.3 | towards that and hold people to account for their actions. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.