The investigative journalism agency Slidstvo.Info, which has been identifying Russian military personnel involved in the war against Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war, invites regional journalists to attend training sessions led by the School of Identifying Evil team.
The aim of the training sessions is to teach as many Ukrainian journalists as possible to identify Russian military personnel using OSINT technologies: working with social media and other open information platforms, establishing the whereabouts of military personnel, collecting evidence of war crimes, and more.
In three months of war, journalists from Slidstvo.Info have identified and published data on hundreds of Russian military personnel fighting on Ukrainian territory. Recently, the team of investigators, together with the Anti-Corruption Headquarters, created an online map ‘Russian War Criminals,’ which contains the personal data of more than 138,000 Russian military personnel. The profiles of Russian soldiers include information from journalistic investigations and other materials confirming their presence and specific crimes committed during the war.
Slidstvo.Info journalists also conducted a series of training sessions on identifying Russians for Ukrainian law enforcement officers. The journalists’ findings helped law enforcement officers identify specific individuals from the Russian army and declare them suspects in official investigations.
The ‘School of Identifying Evil’ program includes three four-hour webinars and six weeks of mentorship.
Participants will study in two groups (in June and July) and will acquire the following skills:
- assessing the potential of investigative topics;
- working with large datasets on occupiers;
- identifying individuals, OSINT research methodology, and information verification;
- text and video storytelling on war-related topics;
- ethical and professional standards of war reporting;
- independent video production (video blogging);
- distributing materials on social media and YouTube.
Sixteen journalists will be selected to participate in the training, primarily from the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Kherson oblasts.
The eight most active participants with their own topics will receive mentoring from journalists at Slidstvo.Info and will conduct two journalistic investigations during the six weeks of mentoring. The best materials will be published on the website and/or YouTube channel of Slidstvo.Info and distributed on the agency’s social media accounts.
Each published material will be remunerated with a fee of UAH 10,000 (in some cases, the amount of the fee may vary).
Slidstvo.Info will also provide the eight selected participants with a blogger kit (tailored to the format of journalistic materials) and a tactical first aid kit.
To participate in the ‘School of Identifying Evil’ training, applicants must register via the provided link.
The first group of eight participants will be formed by June 5, 2022, and will attend webinars on June 7, 8, and 14, 2022.
The second group will be formed by July 10, 2022, and will attend webinars on July 12, 13, and 15, 2022.
The trainers of the School are members of the Slidstvo.Info team: journalist and author of training courses on identifying Russian military personnel for law enforcement officers Dmytro Replianchuk, journalist and OSINT researcher of the occupiers Vasyl Bidun, editor-in-chief of the agency and regional editor of OCCRP Anna Babinets, chief director Yakiv Liubchych, and digital manager Tetiana Kolisnyk.
The webinar programme will be provided to selected participants.
Language — Ukrainian.
If you have any questions, please contact manager Maryna Lohachova: logachova.maryna@gmail.com or +38(067) 777-14-48.
This event is organised by Slidstvo.Info as part of the programme ‘Support for Regional Media in Ukraine during the War’ with the financial support of the European Union and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway. The content of the School is the sole responsibility of Slidstvo.Info and does not reflect the views of the European Union, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway or the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
