Sourcing
Introduction
Providing sources is an invaluable and important part of any analytical work, ensuring accuracy, accountability, cross-referencing, and a starting point for others who might wish to begin their own inquiries. Thus, I think it important to include my regular sources on the war here. Those listed below are where the bulk of the Daily Updates’ information comes from, and I have endeavored to include short summaries of why I believe each are useful and valuable.
Sources List
Governments
Much of the information on ongoing battles and skirmishes comes from the Ukrainian and Russian governments, chiefly their Ministries of Defense and General Staffs, and it is worth detailing their value as (seemingly) authoritative sources.
Generally speaking, Ukrainian governmental sources can be trusted, though most claims should be taken with a grain of salt. Most Ukrainian officials’ claims – except those on Russian loss statistics – are regularly corroborated by other publicly available sources and tend to be either accurate or at least close to the mark. Importantly, as a members of a democratic government beholden to its people, Ukrainian officials possess far fewer reasons to lie and face far greater consequences if and when they do. This is made obvious by the fact that, rather than lie, silence from Ukrainian officials can often be used as reliable evidence that a Russian claim (say, the capture of a village) is likely true. However, just because Ukrainian officials can often be trusted does not mean their word is law – waiting for confirmation (preferably video evidence) is preferred.
By contrast, official Russian sources cannot be trusted except insofar as they are directly corroborated by other sources. Russian military and civilian officials regularly lie, often in exceedingly obvious ways, and there are plenty of incentives throughout Russia’s corrupt autocracy to suppress the truth, especially when it is potentially embarrassing for senior leaders. At best, Russian reports can be trusted to gather the most basic information (e.g. whether fighting is ongoing in an area), but nothing beyond that. Under no circumstances should any uncorroborated claims from Russian officials be taken as factual or representative of the situation on the ground.
Media
From the very opening minutes of the war, the media has played a vital role in ensuring that information is readily accessible and available to anyone interested in the conflict, and in particular their efforts have done much to highlight the misery and suffering that Russia has inflicted upon Ukraine.
Most notably, several sources not listed below – namely the Huffington Post, NBC News, CNN, and BBC News – did excellent work during the opening weeks of the invasion running live feeds that served as some of the only (mostly) reliable information streams available to the public during the chaotic early fighting. Sadly, many of these feeds were shut down or greatly reduced in scope over the months that followed.
Please note that this list is far from authoritative, and that the reporters touted below are only a small selection of those I most admire. There are many hundreds of journalists, cameramen and women, and other media workers who are doing excellent and often unappreciated work covering the war in Ukraine, many of them risking their lives to bring stories back from the frontlines. All of those working diligently to ensure that Ukraine’s story is told (and toll right) deserve a read.
New York Times
From the beginning, the New York Times has provided solid coverage of the war in Ukraine, and remains one of the few still maintaining a live feed (though it is more of a periodic blog and its continued existence appears tenuous). While they have made some notably missteps, the Times‘s coverage of Ukraine has been largely good; in particular, their reporters have done excellent work covering tragic vignettes and providing video and especially imagery of the war.
Reuters
Reuters is – by my estimation – the best overall source for news, period. Its stories are typically short, to the point, cover global events, place a strong emphasis on economic impact, and possess an aversion to bias that puts every other news outlet to shame. Their coverage of Ukraine has been outstanding, particularly the work of their reporters and photographers detailing the war on the ground.
Kyiv Independent
A Ukrainian-run but English-language newspaper founded shortly before the war commenced, the Kyiv Independent has proven itself to be (in my opinion) Ukraine’s best news outlet, with a wide selection of fantastic reporters and hard-hitting stories that detail their war and their country. They are a valuable source and a powerful voice for national victory. Moreover, the importance of listening to Ukrainian voices and Ukrainian perspectives cannot be overstated.
Illia Ponomarenko
My personal favorite reporter of the war and a journalist for the Kyiv Independent, Illia Ponomarenko is a wonderful human being who has covered his country’s struggle on Twitter and at the Independent with verve, wit, humility, and a deep humanity. It seems to me that there is no man more representative of Ukraine’s Western-facing, optimistic younger generation, and if there is one source that you should walk away from this page following, it is Ponomarenko.
Anastasiia Lapatina
Another reporter for the Kyiv Independent and another fantastic human being, Anastasiia Lapatina has covered the war in Ukraine with an emphasis on humanitarian efforts – including those of her own mother – and the suffering of Ukrainian civilians caught in the crossfire of a war they never asked for.
Nika Melkozerova
An award-winning Ukrainian journalist currently reporting for Politico Europe, Nika Melkozerova is a characterful and unapologetic figure who has covered the conflict with all of the tenacity and outrage her people feel. Moreso than other reporters, she has been unafraid to criticize President Zelenskyy’s government and to look ahead to the potential dangers of postwar Ukraine, and works to ensure that her country holds itself to the moral standards that it has set out to defend.
Dan Lamothe
A military reporter for the Washington Post who covers a wide variety of military (chiefly United States military) topics. While his work is far from solely focused on the war in Ukraine, his coverage often provides a vital perspective into what American officials think and what they are doing, and he remains a good source for understanding the war’s wider impacts.
Organizations
There are several think-tanks and websites whose coverage of the Russo-Ukrainian War has proven immensely valuable, and in whose absence the conflict would be next to impossible for someone like myself to quickly summarize and share. Their combination of information aggregation, analysis, data cataloguing, and asset creation (most especially of maps) forms the hard bedrock of evidence from which most of the information for the Daily Updates – particularly those after the first month – are drawn.
Institute for the Study of War
The Institute for the Study of War is a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank focusing on foreign policy and national defense. Throughout the war, the ISW has provided daily updates of their own and special reports covering many aspects of the conflict; its coverage remains the single largest pillar supporting my own Daily Updates. The ISW’s only real drawback is their subpar maps, which I formerly used before replacing them with MilitaryLand’s far superior material.
MilitaryLand.net
Speaking of which, MilitaryLand is a website run by a collection of avid Ukrainian military enthusiasts. MilitaryLand produces – in my personal estimation – the best, most informative, and easily readable maps on the Russo-Ukrainian War. The website is narrowly focused on the Ukrainian military and the current situation on the ground, rarely straying beyond those bounds, and going so far as to try and keep track of the deployment and rotation of individual Ukrainian brigades.
Royal United Services Institute
A London-based think-tank centered around national security issues (and the oldest such organization in the world), the RUSI ahs published many excellent pieces of analysis throughout the war. While it is far from necessary to read every article, it is good to be aware of what they produce, as their work often sparks discussion amongst experts and analysts.
Oryx
While Oryx might technically belong under the “Open Source” category further below, their influence has been enormous. One of the most famous and extraordinarily useful sources about the conflict, Oryx’s operators pledged to identify and count every single vehicle lost by both Ukraine and Russia, and to provide visual evidence to confirm each and every item. Their commitment to accuracy and detail is legendary, and they have been cited by governments and media alike.
Analysts
There are numerous analysts and experts whose assessments and insights into the conflict have been quite helpful, and without whom many of the finer and more technical details of the conflict would be forgotten or never noticed in the first place. While this is not a list of every analyst I follow or value, it is an abridged list of the best among them, and all of those below are well worth following.
It should be noted that, while a layman can easily follow many of those below, the true value in following analysts directly is listening in on assessments from and dialogues between them about all sorts of esoteric issues such as force structure design, doctrinal implementation and failures, the employment and effectiveness of specific weapons systems, and so on and so forth. If you do not have at least some background in national security/military theory/etc. discussion, much of the prime value of these sources might be lost on you – though they also make an excellent place to begin honing those skills!
War on the Rocks
As is proudly declared on their website, War on the Rocks is “Fore insiders. By insiders.” Acting as something of a single point of contact for several noted national security analysts, the site hosts podcasts and essays from notable figures like Michael Kofman, Lawrence Freedman, and Jack Watling. While not particularly useful to someone without some experience discussing the topics it covers, it is a good place to find what true experts have to say.
Michael Kofman
Born in Ukraine before moving to the United States, Michael Kofman is the Director of Russia Studies at the Center for Navla Analyses (amongst other roles) and is amongst the world’s foremost experts on the Russian military. His infrequent but piercing and refreshingly sober analysis of the war has made him an especially potent source, and whatever Kofman says or predicts is almost certainly worth listening to.
Mick Ryan (Maj. Gen., AU Army, Ret.)
Only recently retired from his role as major general in the Australian Army, Mick Ryan is a valued analyst of the war in Ukraine. His work has focused on skewering Russia for the incompetence of its invasion, praising and analyzing the Ukrainians ingenuity and adaptive abilities, and – most importantly – lambasting the Russian military for the heinous and criminal conduct that many Western commanders like himself abhor.
Rob A. Lee
A former United States Marine, a PhD student at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Rob Lee is an excellent aggregator and commentator on the war in Ukraine. His Twitter feed is full of long threads collecting video and image evidence on various topics, and his periodic commentary is always intelligent and interesting.
Mark Hertling (Lt. Gen., US Army, Ret.)
Another retired general, Mark Hertling is a former commander of United States Army Europe possessing substantial personal experience with both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries. Hertling was an early believer in Ukraine’s capacity to win the war and a consistent critic of the Russian military, having witnessed the former’s rebuilding and latter’s atrophy during the 2010s. While his public commentary regularly strays into non-military spheres, he is worth following.
Phillips O'Brien
The Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, Phillips O’Brien is a notable analyst whose commentary carries significant value. While less useful on more battlefield-focused topics, O’Brien is good at analyzing the larger scope of the war and getting a sense of bigger picture and long-term ideas.
Ben Hodges (Lt. Gen., US Army, Ret.)
The last of the three most notable retired major generals offering commentary on the war in Ukraine, Ben Hodges is another former commander of United States Army Europe whose coverage of the conflict has placed special emphasis on assessing the planning and impact of the military campaigns of Russia and Ukraine. As has been the case with both previous generals, his critiques of Russia are sharp and consistently damning.
Perun
An (as of writing) still Anonymous analyst, Perun is a budgeting and procurement specialist working in the Australian defense sector. It is difficult to overstate how deeply useful and informative his YouTube videos are, covering a wide variety of topics, most especially defense economics. There are genuinely few other sources that are willing or able to share their expertise on this vital topic in an era of renewed industrial warfare.
Open Source Intelligence
So-called “open source intelligence” (“OSINT”) accounts are a selection of (generally) Twitter-based enthusiasts who cover the war in Ukraine on an informal basis.
In aggregate, these accounts are an impressively useful source of information. Many of them freely provide labor-intensive geolocation data on photos and videos, track ongoing battles that larger analysts cannot or do not cover in detail, and work to propagate video and imagery related to the conflict. OSINT is a genuinely novel concept that has great potential and which has made itself especially useful throughout the war in Ukraine.
However, there is an extremely large catch. OSINT has no barrier to entry, is done almost entirely by amateurs and enthusiasts, and is dominated by anonymous uncredentialed accounts, the number of which has exploded since February 24th. As a result, the vast majority of OSINT accounts are, quite frankly, untrustworthy garbage. Many are prone to making outright false claims, amplifying bad sources, republishing or repurposing old media and claiming it as new evidence, and generally pose as being more informed and knowledgeable than they actually are.
They are not, however, all bad. There are many useful OSINT accounts of genuine worth whose coverage and even analysis can generally be regarded as being of good quality, most notably the aforementioned Oryx. One of the most useful services these few accounts provide is policing other, worse actors by correcting their false claims.
All of the OSINT accounts listed below are ones I consider to be in good standing, though they are far from the only quality examples. Due to their anonymous and uncredentialed nature, they are more prone to making mistakes and their nature should not be forgotten.
Calibre Obscura
One of the premier figures in OSINT, Calibre Obscura is an arms-focused account with a special emphasis on non-state actors and the Middle East. Nonetheless, they have been plenty involved in analyzing the use and flow of weapons throughout the duration of the war in Ukraine, and they are a generally trustworthy source who has worked with larger organizations in the past.
Jomini of the West
Were it not for the account’s anonymity and the impossibility of verifying their identity, I would consider Jomini of the West to be amongst the better analysts of the war. Their coverage of the war was phenomenal, including extremely detailed maps, prescient campaign predictions, and thorough analysis of both operations and the realities on the ground that propelled them. Unfortunately, they ceased producing updates in mid-2022; if they fully return, I will be most pleased.
OSINTtechnical
One of the original self-described “OSINT” accounts, OSINTtechnical is probably as close as you can get to gold-standard OSINT. Their most valuable contribution is the sharing of video and photographic evidence of strikes, battles, equipment, combat footage, and other media materials, with a lesser focus on commentary or coverage.
War Mapper
War Mapper produces (as you might expect) excellent war-related maps, and is currently focusing on the war in Ukraine. They are responsible for creating and maintaining the excellent map used by Wikipedia showing the status of the frontlines, which I consider to be the second-best map of the conflict.
WarTranslated
Run by Dmitri, and Estonian, WarTranslated works to translate Russian and Ukrainian social media posts and documents into English in order to let them reach a larger audience. In particular, his translations of stories from the frontlines posted by Russian soldiers have been some of the most simultaneously horrifying and enlightening pieces to come out regarding the nature of modern warfare and the situation on the ground.
Soldiers
Finally, here is a soldier active in Ukraine, who provides a unique perspective on the war.
Maksim
A Ukrainian combat engineer and military officer who was (by his own claims, at least) largely responsible for the infamous destruction of an entire Russian battalion tactical group at the Donets River crossing near Bilohorivka. Maksim is yet another valuable Ukrainian voice whose faith in Ukraine’s ultimate victory is simply infectious.
Other Sources
While this is a long list, it is far from exhaustive. Below are other sources that one might find useful, which I will likely update from time to time. Chiefly included are governmental officials whose statements are often provided and summarized elsewhere by aggregator sources (e.g. New York Times, Institute for the Study of War), but who may still be worth following directly depending on your level of interest in the course of the conflict.