KYIV, UKRAINE — All regions of Ukraine, including those where there were no direct hostilities. Convenient filtering by location, date, and type of material. Only credible sources. This all is presented in the “Russian Crimes” project, an interactive map launched to create the most comprehensive archive of media and military evidence of the many Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine.
The main goal of the project is to collect all reliable sources about these crimes in one place and make them accessible for many years. This will allow journalists, documentary filmmakers, international organizations, historians, writers, and anyone else who wants to recreate an objective picture of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine to rely exclusively on credible data and find the information they need quickly.
“This project started in the first week of the invasion as our response to it. We wanted to convert non-constructive anger into constructive action, so we started recording the number of dead Russian soldiers to serve as proof of the invasion’s scale because Russian authorities stubbornly denied the scale and losses even to their own population. But it quickly became clear that the Russians really didn’t care that their men were dying in Ukraine. it turned out to be more important for us to record their crimes rather than their deaths. There were a lot of high-quality journalistic materials that were actually of historical value, and we didn’t want them to live for just a day. Because we don’t just want to win, we want Russia to be held fully accountable for every single crime, even the smallest one,” explained Viktor Shkurba, CEO, ISD Group.
All materials are selected according to an important principle: no subjective opinion of the author. These are news stories, interviews, investigations, and reports from the field. Materials from key international media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Time are taken into account, but only articles that are available without a subscription; Ukrainian media that create content in English, as well as YouTube channels and specialized platforms with verified sources of information.
The authors of the project emphasize that it can and should be used as a database, and if you work in the media, in the future you can offer your own material for placement on the map. It will be verified by proofreaders and will appear there as further evidence of the thousands of war crimes committed by Russia on the territory of Ukraine.
