Bellingcat is a high-tech digital investigation and news team. The group does open-source research by accessing satellite imagery, existing data, and real-time photos and videos.

They depend on citizen journalists and researchers and an internet connection for their investigations. All the information is verified and compiled using geolocation, chronolocation, and analyzing existing data. 

The founder, Eliot Higgins began the information gathering service in 2014. And Bellingcat has grown from an online sleuthing project to a global information-gathering effort.

Higgins tells the story of the collaborative project in 2021 We Are Bellingcat: Global Crime, Online Sleuths, and the Bold Future of News. In the book, he describes how the citizen research organization identified the missiles that downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine. Uncovered the use of chemical weapons used by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. And identified the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, and discovered Kremlin hit teams in Europe. 

Open-source research shows war in real-time

Higgins insists that all you need to become an open-source research source is an internet connection, a Twitter account, and curiosity.

Bellingcat operates on donations. And their goal is to investigate and uncover wrongdoing all around the world.

With the current Russia-Ukraine conflict the team has created an open-source Russian Ukraine Monitor Map to track and confirm the developments of the war in near real-time.

Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map is a crowdsourced effort that depends on volunteers in the field and verifying personnel at the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR). Collection for the incidents contained in the map began on February 24, 2022. And users can explore incidents by type, date and location.

Each color coded, highlighted point on the map is clickable. And allows the user to view in-depth details about the events taking place.

The Bellingcat website claims that “the wider open-source community to map, document and verify significant incidents during the conflict in Ukraine. Its aim is to provide reliable information for policymakers, journalists as well as justice and accountability bodies about the evolving situations both on-the-ground and online. Bellingcat and the Conflict Intelligence Team. “

“We intend this to be a living project that will continue to be updated as long as the conflict persists. For more detailed information about the entries included in this map, please refer to our methodology and explainer article which can be read here.”