The Ukraine Conflict Observatory is an American non-governmental organization which analyzes and publicizes evidence of Russian war crimes and other atrocities in the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

. The organization uses open source intelligence research methods and commercial satellite imagery and data to produce reports that meet legal standards for use in international accountability efforts, and real time data to aid humanitarian organizations.

Organization

The Conflict Observatory was announced by

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

press secretary

Ned Price Edward "Ned" Price (born November 22, 1982) is an American political advisor and former intelligence officer serving as spokesman for the United States Department of State since 2021. He worked at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2006 ...

, May 17, 2022. The Conflict Observatory is a collaborative endeavor with geographic information system (

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...

) company Esri, the

Yale School of Public Health The Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) was founded in 1915 by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow and is one of the oldest public health masters programs in the United States. It is consistently rated among the best schools of public health in the cou ...

’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), led by

Nathaniel Raymond Nathaniel Raymond (born November 11, 1977) is an American human rights investigator, specializing in the investigation of war crimes, including mass killings and torture. Raymond directed the anti-torture campaign at Physicians for Human Rights ( ...

and Kaveh Khoshnood, the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative
AlcisPlanetScape AiQuiet Professionals LLC
and unclassified medium-to-high resolution electro optical imagery and

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...

data from the

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national ...

(NGA) and National Reconnaissance Office via the Global-Enhanced GEOINT Delivery system. None of the data the Observatory uses and disseminates is classified; the satellite imagery comes from NGA's commercial contracts with private companies. An initial $6 million investment was provided by the US State Department

Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations The Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) is a bureau of the United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government re ...

, with future funding allocated from the European Democratic Resilience Initiative (EDRI).

Reports

On May 17, Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab provided evidence supporting allegations of violations of international law perpetrated by the armed forces of the Russian Federation in five Ukrainian cities and regions to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe ( OSCE)

Moscow Mechanism The Moscow Mechanism, established in 1991, is a confidence and security-building measure among the 57 participating States of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). It complements and strengthens the Vienna mechanism, ado ...

to support an investigation by the organization. The evidence corroborated public reporting with commercial satellite imagery and open source intelligence.{{Cite web , title=Conflict Observatory , url=https://medicine.yale.edu/lab/khoshnood/projects/conflict-observatory/ , access-date=2022-07-19 , website=

, language=en Later presented as the first Conflict Observatory report, the HRL review of 277 healthcare facilities across five cities and regions in Ukraine concluded that "Russia-aligned forces have engaged in widespread and systematic bombardment of Ukrainian healthcare facilities" and that "22 of the 277 healthcare facilities in Ukraine have sustained damage from apparent Russian bombardment between 24 February and 29 March 2022." While executive briefs of reports will be made available to the public, the full data sets are Closed Source, though outside organizations and international investigators would be able access the full contents of the database.

References

Non-governmental organizations United States Department of State agencies Organizations established in 2022