The technological landscape for open-source intelligence, or OSINT, has changed a lot since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Back then, high-resolution commercial satellite imagery was still in its infancy and public-domain analyses of Crimea viewed from space could take weeks to unfold.
Today, satellite companies Maxar Technologies and Planet can provide media outlets with near real-time images of the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s borders, the subsequent invasion, and the damage caused by Russian strikes. And with the war underway, social media is swamped by images and videos showing everything from verbal confrontations between Ukrainian citizens and Russian soldiers to the impact of missile strikes on residential infrastructure.
Governments no longer have exclusive access to the technology that puts eyes on the battlefield — which means they no longer control the narrative in the way they once did. But for some OSINT specialists, analyzing information that can tip the scales of a war raises some difficult questions.
Melissa Hanham, an OSINT specialist affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, told BuzzFeed News that she believes that practitioners need to wrestle with some difficult questions: “Are OSINT analysts now actors in an active conflict? Can OSINT analysts change conflicts?”
Source: BuzzFeed News