The Centre for Information Resilience’s “Eyes on Russia” Project maps, documents and verifies significant incidents related to Russian aggression toward Ukraine. CIR investigators collate, geolocate, and verify information appearing on social media.
Our latest findings can always be found on this Twitter thread.
CIR contextualizes these details amid the discourse and developments every two weeks in these reports.
Each day, the footage and imagery are added to the Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map, which policymakers, journalists, and other OSINT researchers can use to track the conflict. As part of this effort, CIR publishes weekly written summaries of its research, detailing verified troop and equipment analysis, influence operation narratives, and broader updates.
This is the sixth of such reports.
Executive Summary
● Since the 6th of April, Russian forces have re-deployed across Ukraine in the lead up to the second phase of the Russian invasion to take Ukraine’s Eastern Donbass region.[1] Multiple satellite imagery geolocated by CIR has confirmed Russian military build-up in Kherson airbase, close to Ukraine's border near Dubrovka and Biriuch in Russia, and moving south through Velykyi Burluk.
● As Russian forces are withdrawing from regions that were previously occupied, more evidence and testimonies are coming to light about Russian atrocities. CIR has published two separate investigations about Russian atrocities.
● The first is about mass graves in Yalivshchyna Forest near the city of Chernihiv. The mass graves evidenced wide scale civilian casualties in the wake of the Russian occupation of the city of Chernihiv and the broader region.
● The second focused on clear indications of Russian killings of Ukrainian civilians on highways across Ukraine. The investigation shows the wide scale and systematic targeting of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces across the country.
● In the information sphere, CIR has observed systematic efforts to spread disinformation about Russian actions in Ukraine, particularly about the atrocities in Bucha and the missile attack in Kramatorsk on 8th April.
● On 13th April, CIR’s Director of Investigations, Benjamin Strick, published a report about the online disinformation efforts surrounding the Russian massacres of civilians in Bucha titled “Disinformation & Denial: Russia’s attempts to discredit open source evidence of Bucha.” In the report, he details the efforts of a Russian endorsed site “War on Fakes” to discredit testimonies and footage coming to light from Bucha.
● On 8th April, a missile attack took place in Kramatorsk railway station as thousands of civilians were seeking to flee the city and nearby region from Russian attacks.[2] In the wake of the attack, CIR has observed the proliferation of a doctored BBC video that attempted to portray the missile attack as an operation carried out by the Ukrainian military.[3]