WASHINGTON — An unusual investigation using
publicly available videos, smartphone photographs and satellite images shows
that Russia is continuing to defy the West by
conducting protracted military operations inside Ukraine, according to an independent report.
Russia has long dismissed Western allegations
that its military has intervened in Ukraine as little more than
computer-generated propaganda.
In an attempt to puncture the Russian denials,
independent experts have operated like digital Sherlock Holmeses, using
Google’s Street View, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, satellite photographs and
Russia’s version of Facebook, including social media updates by Russian
soldiers. That research was then supplemented by more traditional sources like
court documents and local media reports.
“Independent researchers, using open sources
and rigorous methodology, have demonstrated that Russian troops and Russian weapons
have been an important part of the fight in Ukraine’s east,” said John E.
Herbst, a former American ambassador to Ukraine and one of the authors of the
report, Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine, which is to be released Thursday
by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research center.
While the most recent photograph analyzed in
the Atlantic Council report was taken in February, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, said in an interview in Washington on Wednesday
that there was ample evidence that Russia still had forces in Ukraine and was
sending arms to separatists there.
“Russia
is present in eastern Ukraine,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. “This is something we
have from our own intelligence. But in addition to our own intelligence, it is
based on open sources.”
The report comes as European nations are
preparing to vote next month on whether to ease or maintain economic sanctions
on Russia because of its role in Ukraine.
“The way Russian propaganda works, it makes it
seem you can’t possibly know the truth,” said Eliot Higgins, a British-based
researcher who founded the investigative website Bellingcat.com and led the effort to analyze
the imagery for the Atlantic Council report. “If you try to counter it by doing
the same thing, you are just adding to the noise. But you can get to the truth
by pointing to the open source data and what’s publicly available.”
Analyzing photographs of large craters in
Ukraine and videos of rocket launches on nearby Russian territory, the Atlantic
Council report concludes that Russian units have fired across the Ukrainian
border. The report finds that craters near the Ukrainian town Panchenkove were
the result of Russian multiple rocket fire near Gukovo, Russia, and from a
separate site in eastern Ukraine.
“Four
videos containing geotags filmed in different locations in and around Gukovo
showed the launch of rockets,” the report said. “Cross-border attacks served as
cover for a renewed military incursion in the summer of 2014.” Geotags
can show where images and videos were created.
Drawing on satellite photographs and social
media posts by Russian soldiers, the report shows the network of Russian
military camps that have sprouted near the Ukrainian border and have been used
to send Russian weapons and troops into eastern Ukraine. The camps, the report
notes, are in plain view to “anyone with access to Google Earth or Google Maps.”
Using YouTube video, the report tracked the
movement of Russian convoys, including armored vehicles and self-propelled
artillery. In one case, the report notes, a Russian military convoy was filmed
moving in August through Staraya Stanitsa, Russia. In February, a YouTube
channel associated with Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists showed an armored
vehicle from the same convoy in Ukraine.
By using satellite imagery and separate
photographs of Russian equipment, the report also documents the movement of
Russian tanks, SA-22 air-defense systems, Grad rocket launchers and armored
reconnaissance vehicles.
American officials have at times used
photographs to buttress their claims of Russian intervention. When Secretary of
State John Kerry met with President Vladimir V. Putin in Sochi, Russia, this
month, Mr. Kerry showed him photographs of Russian air defenses and other weapons
in eastern Ukraine to try to persuade him that the United States had clear
evidence of Russia’s military role, Western officials said.
But the photographs Mr. Kerry showed Mr. Putin
have not been made public. Russian officials, who have repeatedly portrayed
Ukraine’s new government as the main obstacle to a political settlement, have
dismissed NATO’s public evidence as misinformation.
Mr. Stoltenberg declined to say how many
Russian troops were in Ukraine or positioned near its border. But one Western
official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing intelligence
reports, said Russia had moved about nine battalion tactical groups close to
its border with Ukraine, and that as many as five additional battalions could
be sent there in coming weeks. The number of troops in such units can vary, but
a battalion could have about 1,000 troops, creating a potential force of well
over 10,000 Russian troops in Ukraine by this summer.
It is unclear if Russia is preparing for a
major offensive to help Ukrainian separatists seize more territory or if it is
trying to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to make more constitutional
concessions. Either way, the moves by Russia’s military are a violation of the
peace agreement that was negotiated in Minsk, Belarus, in February, which
called for the removal of foreign troops, the pulling back of heavy weapons and
the disbanding of “illegal groups.”
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said in a
speech on Wednesday that the conflict over Ukraine is “a test for the West,”
and that “President Putin is wagering that he has greater staying power.”
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