Ukraine says it is outraged by the continued export of grain by a Russian-flagged vessel from a sanctioned port in occupied Crimea to Houthi-controlled Yemen. Bellingcat and @LloydsList investigate: bellingcat.com/news/2024/12/1… What Ukraine describes as “grain theft” via occupied ports and territories has become a common occurrence since the onset of Russia’s full invasion, with dozens of ships ferrying grain from occupied ports to the likes of Syria, Iran and other destinations.

Former Syrian President Bashar Al Assad ruled ruthlessly for over two decades. With the help of Russian and Iranian forces, he also carried out some of the most vicious acts of the country’s 13-year civil war, from chemical attacks to the bombing of hospitals 🧵 In this collaboration with @ForensicArchi, we showed that the M2 Hospital in Aleppo was struck 14 times by the Syrian Army or its allies between June and September 2016 forensic-architecture.org/investigation/…

Last month a visit from Israeli football club Maccabi in Amsterdam resulted in violence erupting throughout the city. To gain a better understanding of the events, we worked with Dutch newspaper @trouw to analyse videos that circulated online. trouw.nl/binnenland/wat… Early signs of clashes began prior to kick off with reports and videos emerging of Maccabi fans tearing a Palestinian flag off a building in Amsterdam and chanting anti-Arab slogans on their way to the stadium amongst other incidents.

In this guide by @Pooja_Chaudhuri and @melzxy we outline how we used Meta’s free-to-use Ad Library to analyse data about political candidates’ ad spending to get a sense of how they approach digital advertising. bellingcat.com/resources/2024… We break down how we analysed the campaigns of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and got insights into which states they targeted, their estimated ad spending and some of the key themes that appeared in the ads.

The Ukrainian city of Vovchansk has been pummelled by Russian forces. Hospitals, schools, residential blocks and more have been flattened. Now, a new analysis suggests close to 80% of buildings in the city have been either damaged or destroyed. bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/2… Bellingcat and journalists from the Kyiv, Kharkiv and Paris bureaus of @AFP investigated the destruction of Vochansk and spoke to residents who had fled.

A tugboat involved in an incident leading to an oil spill in the Caribbean has now been arrested in Angola. Bellingcat previously identified the vessel responsible for the oil spill, its owners, and its location in Angola. splash247.com/trinidad-and-t… After the spill, authorities couldn’t find a registration number for the vessel responsible. Bellingcat was able to identify this mystery vessel as an unpowered barge that did not have a registration number to begin with. It was abandoned by its tugboat, the “Solo Creed". bellingcat.com/news/2024/02/1…

Our final workshops for this year are now live on our website ready for registrations! See what we’re offering and when here 🧵⬇️ On October 29th - November 1 we have a webinar looking at verification techniques and research on social platforms. The workshop will be targeted for American time zones. bellingcat.com/workshops/oct-…

In @kolinakoltai and @foekepostma’s latest investigation for Bellingcat they used satellite imagery to show activity on land belonging to Cards Against Humanity, which is the subject of a legal dispute with Elon Musk's SpaceX. bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/2… SpaceX is accused of trespassing on land owned by US game company, Cards Against Humanity, for more than six months as per a lawsuit filed and announced on September 19, 2024. cah-sues-elon-musk.s3.amazonaws.com/240919+Plainti…

Bellingcat’s Financial Investigations team explores the bizarre streams of online gambling company 1xBet, that allow gamblers to bet on tournaments organised on an industrial scale from amateur sports separated by curtains to strange arcade-like games. bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/2… 1xBet is blacklisted in several countries but remains one of the largest online casinos in the world, with a reported turnover of billions of dollars. ftm.nl/artikelen/1xbe…

Video released by the IDF allowed the site where Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed to be geolocated to the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah. By @JakeGodin for Bellingcat: bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/1… On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in southern Gaza. As part of its announcement, the IDF shared images and video shot from the location where they said Sinwar was killed.

In our latest investigation, Bellingcat researcher @KolinaKoltai reveals the hidden network behind OpenDream, an AI art generator platform. She found several instances of child sexual abuse material being generated and featured on the site. bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/1… Bellingcat first came across OpenDream through promotional posts on X in July. Some of these posts featured images of young girls next to adult women in bikinis.

We asked you where we should capture satellite imagery! We selected a few of your suggestions and here are the results… 🧵bellingcat.com/resources/2024… Bellingcat uses @planet and @umbraspace satellite imagery on a regular basis for our investigations. With the help of these satellite services we can take a snapshot of anywhere in the world by "tasking" their satellites to take an image at up to 25-centimetre resolution.

A lesson in revisiting your findings! Bellingcat researcher @colbornemichael discovered a small streetwear shop in Bulgaria is designing far-right for fashion brands thanks to a previous geolocation. bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/0… Far-right fashion and merchandise sales can help promote racist ideas among youth, provide revenue for hate movements and help the far right strengthen bonds across borders and continents. We’ve previously covered how the Active Club movement uses this tactic:

https://x.com/bellingcat/status/1788269686188286269/video/1

Satellite imagery shows Israel Defense Forces (IDF) activity around the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) base, where Irish peacekeeping troops are stationed. New from Bellingcat’s @jakegodin bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/0… The imagery released by Planet Labs PBC shows at least 30 military vehicles that appear to belong to the IDF. New roads are visible, and nearby orchards have been cleared, around the base which is officially known as “UNP 6-52”.

Journalists @ellachakarian and @BenceXavier investigate suspected cases of property destruction and ransacking in Khankendi/Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh, after over 100,000 Karabakh Armenians fled the region last year amongst Azerbaijan’s offensive. bellingcat.com/news/mena/2024… Since September last year, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been negotiating the terms for a peace treaty. A critical issue in these negotiations is the right to return for Nagorno-Karabakh’s displaced ethnic Armenian population.

Great news! Bellingcat just launched the new Online Investigations Toolkit. In the toolkit you can discover tools for everything from satellite imagery analysis, to social media scraping, transportation tracking or archiving research material. bellingcat.com/resources/2024… But not only will it help you to find the tools useful for your research, it’s also designed to help researchers learn how to use each tool, and it includes common use cases and information on requirements and limitations for each tool.

Bellingcat explores the mysterious Hungarian company linked to the exploding pagers from Tuesday’s attack in Lebanon that left at least 12 dead and almost 3000 injured. Researchers found an unreported name associated with the consulting firm. bellingcat.com/news/2024/09/2… Tensions between Hezbollah and Israel continue to escalate. Earlier today, Israel carried out an airstrike in the south of Beirut. At least 12 people were killed and 66 injured according to the latest figures from Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Today @globalfreemedia has called attention to an ongoing smear campaign run by pro-government Hungarian media outlets against our collaborative project The Eastern Frontier Initiative with our partners @444hu @PressOneRomania @gazeta_wyborcza @denniksme
ipi.media/hungary-new-sm… The project is aimed at connecting publishers from Central and Eastern Europe to strengthen fact-based public discourse about European defense and security. Our role at Bellingcat is to develop open source investigative capabilities in the region. ec.europa.eu/info/funding-t…

Grain exports from Russian-occupied Crimea are reaching new destinations. @bridget_diakun and @LloydsList report on a recent shipment that docked in Egypt despite warnings from the Ukrainian officials. lloydslist.com/LL1150528/Ship… The vessel that Lloyd’s List recorded as loading grain at the Port of Sevastopol in Crimea, which is also under western-sanction, was the Damas Wave (IMO:8915299). It was subsequently pictured as it passed through the Bosphorus Strait by @YorukIsik

https://x.com/yorukisik/status/1828164418649162150?t=Ysi8O7551jSYqtAi-_W4uw

The Bellingcat Team has geolocated footage recorded by the militant group that killed more than 100 people in Burkina Faso last week and reviewed satellite imagery showing the expansion of defensive trenches around the town, both before and after the attack. bellingcat.com/news/2024/09/0… The residents of Barsalogho - a town located about 120km north of the country’s capital, were attacked whilst digging defensive trenches, footage reviewed by Bellingcat shows they were unarmed when they were shot and killed.

In our latest guide, Bellingcat contributor @wammezz explains how to use open source earth observation tools to detect and monitor oil spills. bellingcat.com/resources/how-… Monitoring oil spills using satellite imagery can be crucial to prevent environmental disasters. Wim is currently using these methods to monitor the oil tanker that was targeted by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.

https://x.com/wammezz/status/1829158208453382408