The chance that in front of one of the first destroyed buildings in Borodianka there was a bust of the writer Taras Shevchenko, a national symbol of Ukraine, led the verifiers to verify that it was that place and not any other residential area.
Details are fundamental when it comes to geolocating the images of everything that is happening in Ukraine, where it is increasingly difficult to recognize the streets and cities through which citizens and tourists walked just over two months ago.
The photographs and videos uploaded in the past by anonymous users to social networks and the use of open sources are crucial to identify which areas Russian troops are advancing through, if they are committing crimes in their path and what their objectives are.
What details does a verifier look at?
Why is it important that Google Street View works in territories?
Can images recorded in an interior shed light on an attack?
Is the use of the Cyrillic alphabet a drawback when it comes to understanding street signs?
In the video that accompanies this news, it is explained how decisive each element that appears in the images that come to us from the war can be, from the color of the facades of the buildings to the traffic signs.
The work of geolocation and verification has become essential to follow and confirm the progress of the conflict in a short time.
Given the impossibility of special envoys reaching all corners of Ukraine, the newsroom is working together with journalists on the ground to provide much more complete information.