The flood of open-source data and information, reporting and propaganda streaming out of Eastern Ukraine did enable outsiders to get surprisingly quickly a good understanding or what might have happened. It does obviously not replace traditional or other means of gathering information to understand events but it does in many cases greatly aid them.
The geo-location of digital media like tweets, pictures, videos is greatly speeding up research and makes it far more accurate. Fascinating stuff. In this specific case the close links between Russian news outlets and Russian organizations in Eastern Ukraine and the Russian propaganda overdrive made many events quite visible. Girkins bragging about a downed aircraft, rebel boasting of Buk launchers, videos of said launchers, quick propaganda spread by Russia media and so forth all left leads pointing towards a highly likely chain of events.
Brown Moses is of course also involved.
In the great scheme of things OSINT will become increasingly important for all the interested actors.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks