On Tuesday 17 October we had the pleasure to host our first public-facing event with our NGO partner Airwars. Titled “Documenting civilian harm in Ukraine and elsewhere”, the Westminster event was moderated by APPG Officer Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and featured an expert panel of actors working on civilian harm tracking in Ukraine. Speakers discussed the challenges associated with documenting civilian harm incidents in Ukraine, how technology has helped and hindered these efforts, and how new methodological approaches have enabled civilian harm data that is collected to begin to contribute towards international accountability efforts, including war crimes investigations at the ICC.

Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe from the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) presented on their joint initiative with OSINT organisation Bellingcat: The Justice and Accountability Unit, and how OSINT methodologies in the digital sphere can transform the use of evidence in justice processes. Belén Carrasco Rodriguez, Project Director for the Centre of Information Resilience's 'Eyes on Russia' project, shared CIR’s methodology and how it is continuously used to debunk disinformation campaigns in the Ukraine conflict. Claire Alspektor and Anna Zahn, Head of Research and Conflict Research consultant at Airwars respectively, presented Airwars’ data tracking of civilian harm globally – and their in-depth data study of the Battle of Kharkiv. Maksym Demydenko, co-founder of the Ukraine War Archives, which works to document, archive, and analyse digital data sources on the ground in Ukraine.