The war in Ukraine is more documented than any other war in human history, thanks to a portable device that can be found in almost every pocket: a smartphone.
Used by attackers, defenders and civilians, it not only helps to record and understand events, but even changes the face of war.
Each of the millions of devices in Ukraine are equipped with sensors that can provide location and time data. Their microphones and cameras can record and broadcast the sounds and images of war and become propaganda tools. This material allows investigators to create large databases of video footage of the conflict that could, in the future, confirm the commission of war crimes.
Smartphones are used to locate military targets (with or without the will of users) and to assess damage. They allow ordinary people to transmit information about targets to the military. They are used by Ukrainian and Russian citizens to raise money for uniforms, drones or other military equipment, as well as by the Ukrainian military to aim drones and bomb targets.
Millions of videos per year
“War in the palm of your hand is mind-boggling, you can really be anywhere in the world,” said Matthew Ford, assistant professor at the Swedish Defense University. “The device becomes the vehicle by which you produce, publish, and consume media, and target the enemy.”
The digital recording provided by smartphones is already taking by storm. Mnemonic, a Berlin-based nonprofit dedicated to documenting human rights violations in Ukraine, announced that it had amassed 2.8 million entries in less than a year. In the 11 years of the war in Syria, the Syrian Archives, a sister organization, has collected 5 million digital records. AI system with machine learning system works together with Mnemonic employees.
Mobile devices also have significant military utility. “Smartphones are a dream come true for intelligence officers and a nightmare for counterintelligence workers,” said Elliot Cohen, a military historian and strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
When the enemy is betrayed
Chechen fighters often use the TikTok and Instagram platforms to showcase their victories and have given away their location on several occasions thanks to mobile phones. On three occasions, Ukrainian military intelligence was able to track them down through their posts and carry out the same number of strikes, according to a Ukrainian official quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
One incident took place in a school building in rural Kherson. The same source said that the Chechen filmed his fellow fighters from different angles, as well as the school grounds where they were located and the surrounding area. Hours later, a high-precision missile hit the building, killing about 30 militants, Chechens reported on social media.
According to Cohen, the use of phones on the battlefield tests the soldiers’ discipline. A truly disciplined army probably won’t be able to completely ban people from using mobile phones, “but it will do a lot better than, for example, the Russians,” says the historian.
Smartphones “open a window” on the battlefield, providing opportunities for information warfare. Platforms such as Facebook, which is blocked in Russia, and VKontakte are becoming conduits for important content, but the service on which much of the information warfare is fought on both sides is Telegram, an encrypted application that allows material to be widely distributed.
“On Telegram, the horror of war is spilling out without real-time filtering like we’ve never seen it before,” without any protection or censorship, said Andrew Hoskins, professor of global security at the University of Glasgow.
“On some channels, every image and video, I believe, is a violation of the Geneva Conventions,” which prohibit, for example, the distribution of photographs of those who died in the war and emphasize the importance of preserving the dignity of prisoners of war.
WITHWith one investigation, Mnemonic was able to confirm two airstrikes on civilian targets., including two hospitals, in early March in the city of Zhytomyr, almost 145 km west of Kyiv, deep in Ukraine. Moscow regularly denies reports and leaks of information about attacks on civilian targets.
Another organization documenting the conflict on smartphone video is Bellingcat, which was one of the first to cross-check that Russian-backed forces received a Buk missile system from Russia and fired a missile at Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014.
“People started watching the conflict when Russian citizens started filming tanks crossing the border in preparation for an invasion,” said Bellingcat founder Elliott Higgins.
Since the beginning of the war, Bellingcat has been advising Ukrainian prosecutors and their foreign counterparts on the processing and archiving of Internet data in accordance with court standards.
The company has developed a process specifically designed for the legal use of the material, with open source components. “This is the first open source war,” Higgins commented.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Source: Kathimerini
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