This piece is the second in our Geolocation Showcase series. In this case, analysts used foliage, weather, and architectural features to identify an educational facility and establish a timeframe within which it was destroyed. This method, which relies on video or images taken from outside the building, is particularly common for heavily damaged buildings…
The UDVL blog hosts content intended to demonstrate OSINT methods, discuss ethics and organizational challenges, and develop the capacity of the OSINT community at large. Post series typically include example geolocations or chronolocations, skills showcases, and discussion posts by our analysts. Blog series typically reference excerpts from out-of-date investigations that are no longer sensitive, allowing us to use concrete examples.
This piece is the first in a series showcasing geolocations of civilian infrastructure damage using a variety of methods. In this case, the distinctive interior of the building and context provided in the source material allowed analysts to reduce the pool of possible locations and confirm or deny a match to each visually.
UDVL analysts located a video on Twitter claiming to show the damaged interior of a “music school” in Severodonetsk. The video was traced back to a pro-Russian Twitter page called “IntelRepublic,” which itself pulled from the IntelRepublic Telegram channel, where the video was posted first on 18 June 2022.
Since little identifying information was provided outside of the assertion that the building was a “music school,” analysts began a search for music schools in the Severodonetsk Raion…