Narrative Battles: The Impact Open-Source Intelligence on the Framing of Russia’s War on Ukraine

The War in Ukraine has been ongoing since 2014. Since the outset hostilities have coincided with a new era in decentralized, technologically enabled intelligence known as open-source intelligence (OSINT). OSINT increasingly shapes the domestic and global narratives surrounding the conflict. Winning the narrative war is critical to overall strategic and tactical successes on the battlefield and beyond. The volume and velocity of OSINT generated since the escalation in hostilities initiated by the Russian Federation on February 24th, 2022, is the result of a confluence of factors that creates an information battle that contextualizes and frames the political, military, economic, societal, informational, infrastructural, physical environmental, and temporal aspects of the conflict (PMESSI-PT). Shaping global, and in particular allied, perceptions of all the variables within of the PMESSI-PT model are critical sustaining and building support. This analysis examines how the dramatic increase in OSINT in Ukraine has both facilitated and hindered the Ukraine’s efforts to counter Russian aggression.