Jorge Ocana |
Madrid, (EFE).- In the middle of a crossfire in the Ukraine, a bullet hits a soldier who falls to the ground asking for help, a scene that we feel in the first person because it has been recorded with a camera placed on his helmet and has given us arrived through social networks.
Among the many milestones of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, of which this week marks the first anniversary, is the dissemination of images of the battlefront, sometimes very crude, captured by mobile phones, subjective cameras and drones that reach phones and other screens of a global audience.
Although similar images of previous armed conflicts were already circulating on the internet, the greatest impact of this war has multiplied their dissemination and propaganda use, which has contributed to the barrage of misinformation generated by the confrontation, as EFE Verifica has verified.
The first war in our pockets
In the same way that many consider the Gulf War to be the first war conflict televised live in history, the war in Ukraine has become the first to be broadcast through digital platforms, say experts consulted by EFE.
“We are, without a doubt, facing the first war that is broadcast live globally through social networks,” says Belén Carrasco Rodríguez, senior analyst at the Center for Information Resilience (CIR, for its acronym in English). , an organization dedicated to countering misinformation and denouncing human rights abuses.
Combatants from both sides have used the networks to widely publish “images of their successes and victories”, while the drone videos have provided “a very useful panoramic perspective to enrich investigations with context on the geographical area that is being analyzed. ”explains Rodriguez.
These images allow for the first time “to see in real time and in a very realistic way” what is happening on the front lines, considers David Sanz, a researcher specialized in Open Source Intelligence (OSINT, for its acronym in English) known by the pseudonym of Aimery Parekh.
“Before, we only saw what journalists could record on the front lines, but in a very distant way,” adds the co-founder of the Spanish community Brigada OSINT, which specializes in this technique, which consists of collecting and analyzing -from the point of view of military intelligence – from public data, much of it accessible via the Internet.
A military selection of information, not journalistic
The recording and dissemination of these images has meant a new information scheme that dispenses with the traditional media.
“The military often do not go to journalists. When we see actual combat footage, a lot of it comes from military Telegram and TikTok accounts,” says Joanne Stocker, a journalist and analyst specializing in the Ukraine war at Storyful, a social media strategic intelligence agency.
However, although these contents are a great source of information, they can also serve as a propaganda weapon for both sides.
“It is a partial view of what is happening,” Stocker agrees, but specifies that propaganda is not synonymous with falsehood.
“You can use real incidents as war information,” says this analyst, who argues that there is also a risk of revealing strategic positions.
That is why the videos shared by the Ukrainian forces must be approved by commanders or information units in order to verify that there is nothing that could harm the troops.
But while propaganda doesn’t always involve deception, this use of war images also occurs fraudulently.
And “since the internet has no borders, unverified content shared about events that occur in Ukraine can misinform audiences in any country,” remarks Belén Carrasco.
Hints and evidence of war crimes
Another consequence of the recording and dissemination of these images is that they constitute evidence of crimes and can be used in the investigation of war crimes.
Some drone images have provided information about alleged executions, as Aimery Parekh explains about a specific case that combines a video recorded by a Ukrainian soldier with footage from unmanned aircraft that point to the murder of surrendered Russian soldiers.
On the other hand, despite the fact that the videos recorded by the soldiers themselves with their cell phones, subjective cameras and drones show the cruelty of war, there is a risk that the violence will turn into a spectacle.
“It has become like a Big Brother of the war and it is what both sides are playing,” warns Aimery Parekh.
Stocker in turn warns of the loss of sensitivity towards this type of content, as evidenced by the use on social networks of “words that dehumanize someone who has been murdered”.