Geolocation - the weapon of war
Bucha as a source of disinformation
Apart from physical battles and strategic maneuvers, today's war also manifests itself on digital platforms. In modern times, information warfare is a powerful weapon both states and non-state organizations use to influence public opinion and manipulate the course of conflicts. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022 and is still ongoing, has also spread to the sphere of information warfare. In this era of widespread fake news, propaganda, and especially visual manipulations, investigative journalists and fact-checkers are under a huge burden.
Because they have to verify the accuracy of this information and convey the correct news to the audience. During the war, various tools are used for this, and the Geolocation tool is one of the most used for fact-checking and information verification. These tools help analyze and validate visual data such as photos and videos by determining their geographic context.
On April 3, 2022, images of people in civilian clothes scattered on the streets of the Bucha settlement near Kyiv were released. Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of committing a massacre in Bucha, Russian officials claim that these images are fake. Journalists from the German media company DW investigated both claims and found enough evidence to prove that the Russian side was wrong. Journalists used geolocation to check the accuracy of the images.
Disinformation
One of the media that has effectively resigned from geolocation is bellingcat. Bellingcat is an independent, non-profit online investigative journalism organization specializing in open-source intelligence (OSINT) and digital verification.
bellingcat
bellingcat checked tons of Russian disinformation. One was a video shared by Russian-leaning people and pages in March. In the video, a soldier in a Ukrainian military uniform approaches a female driver and scolds her for overtaking military vehicles. After hearing that he speaks Russian and checking his documents, he demands that he switch to Ukrainian and calls him a "pig". bellingcat and GeoConfirmed have proven that the geolocation was taken in Russian-controlled areas behind the front lines that are not under the control of the Ukrainian army. So, the video is fake.
Another important research of the organization is about Tracking the use of Cluster Munitions in Civilian Areas. So, due to the significant damage that cluster munitions can cause, more than 100 countries have banned their use and joined the Convention on cluster bombs. Neither Russia nor Ukraine joined this convention.
HRW has confirmed the use of cluster munitions that fell outside a Ukrainian hospital and called on Russia to stop using cluster munitions. However, according to bellingcat's research, the use of this weapon in civilian areas is much wider.
The fact checkers who found the areas in the photos and videos shared on social media through geolocation also wrote an extensive research article that determined the direction from which they came.
Another example is related to Russian propaganda during the Russian-Ukraine war. On May 5, 2022, the Russian nationalist news agency "Russkaya Vesna" ("Russian Spring") published a short article stating that the Russian Air Force had destroyed the barracks of Ukrainian soldiers near the town of Bilohorivka, Luhansk Region. But the main issue that this news agency did not admit was that one of the objects hit was Ukraine's main water source. The structure depicted was the intake unit and the first lift of the Popasna aqueduct, which carried water from Siversky Donets to several settlements in northern Luhansk Oblast. A bellincat researcher used coordinates and geolocation to investigate how this Russian attack could leave nearly a million people without water.
Zelensky's graffiti
Geolocation is the process of detecting where photos and videos were taken. It is one of the main fact-checking tools regularly used by fact-checkers all over the world. Possible clues in photos and videos are captions, street names, shop signs, famous or touristic places, street signs, etc. Using these tips, researchers can find the exact location on the map and find out if the photo or video taken is real or not.
Geolocation is one of the useful tools for Georgian fact-checkers. Georgia's fact-checking team, Myth Detector, also used this tool to prove that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s graffiti, which was circulated in various cities during the Russian-Ukrainian war, was fake.
For example, on November 30, a photo of the 3D graffiti caricature of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was disseminated by Kremlin propaganda media outlets, including Channel One, Russia Today, ВЕСТИ, Украина.ру, Известия, Аргументы и Факты Федеральное Агентство Новостей. According to the Kremlin media, the photo was taken in Paris, and the authors of the graffiti posted it with the following description: “Hello, France. Give me all your money. I’m sorry, but I don’t care.” The photo shared by Russian media is a screenshot of the Instagram post and appears to have been posted by the Instagram account “typical optical.”
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Paris
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On December 3, a Myth Detector Laboratory alumnus verified the existence of graffiti on the site and confirmed with photographs that no such graffiti was present at the location. Myth Detector also contacted a flower shop located near the location of the graffiti. The representative of the store noted that no such graffiti was painted in this area.
Although the pictures of the mentioned graffiti were spread from Berlin, Warsaw, New York, London and The Hague, Myth Detector and colleagues from different countries were able to determine that they are fake propaganda using geolocation.
Geolocation is a process and technique of identifying the geographical location of a person or an object
Eto Buziashvili is a research associate for the Caucasus at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. She said that, there are different ways to define Geolocation. One of the comprehensive definitions is that geolocation is a process and technique of identifying the geographical location of a person or an object using a digital information process via the internet.
“ Pretty big shares of geolocation false on security-related betters, especially during war and conflicts to basically, identify the location of soldiers or buildings or objects, etc. But the whole philosophy and practice of geolocation of course can be applied to other topics as well.
So when conducting geolocation, it needs that you should have imagery or video footage that surfaced online that you want to verify. Right? There are many techniques involved in geolocation starting from the analysis of imagery or video footage and continuing to voy satellite imagery and map services, then, of course, we need keywords for searching for specific places that course If available metadata, or video or image that we are investigating. The combination of all of these tools.”
As a result, the digital battlefield of modern warfare goes beyond physical confrontations and military strategies. In the Russia-Ukraine war, we also witnessed the spread of fake news, propaganda and visual manipulation. In this era of widespread disinformation, the burden of verifying the accuracy of information and conveying the truth to the public falls on investigative journalists and fact-checkers. In this fight against disinformation, geolocation tools are indispensable tools. As technology continues to advance, so does the fight against disinformation.
