(RFE/RL) – As Russia has moved tens of thousands of troops to its border with Ukraine in recent months, hinted at an armed response if NATO does not acquiesce to its demands and announced extensive military exercises in Belarus, the sheer scale of its mobilization has been difficult for Moscow to downplay or deny.

The reason: Unlike decades past, experts say the surveillance tools available today prevent a modern military from mounting a major logistics operation without alerting the global community. And often the alarm bells are sounded by a network of dedicated detectives who are the first to unearth evidence on the ground.

When Russia this month announced the joint exercises on the territory of its staunch ally, Belarus, it was analysts from the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an open-source investigative media outlet, who filled in the gaps left by Moscow’s lack of clarity, revealing credible estimates that some 8,000 to 15,000 troops were involved and putting the West even more on edge.

“Many soldiers and their relatives write on social media that they are sent to Belarus for training,” said CIT analyst Kirill Mikhailov. say the current time January 19. “The fact that these forces are now being added is a pretty serious sign.”

An investigation by the CIT and the Russian service of RFE/RL, published this week, provided further evidence of the movement of Russian forces westward across the country, towards Belarus and Ukraine.

Information like this is crucial for Western governments preparing for a possible response to any invasion that Russia may mount in the coming months. And CIT isn’t the only company helping them piece things together. Amateur sleuths and open-source investigators working for private organizations and NGOs follow Russia’s mobilization 24/7, scouring social media platforms and compiling commercial satellite imagery to provide evidence of this. that is happening.

One such invaluable source is Maxar Technologies, a commercial satellite and imagery company that has exposed Russia’s growing buildup on its border with Ukraine and in Crimea. Since the end of November, it has been supplying the world’s largest media with images testifying to a rise in Russian power that Moscow can no longer plausibly deny.

More and more untenable denials

When Russia sent forces to take over Crimea from Ukraine in February 2014, its actions were accompanied by repeated denials – including from President Vladimir Putin – that the so-called “little green men” patrolling in the bases of the Ukrainian army on the Black Sea peninsula are actually Russian regular troops.

Later, when he fomented an armed uprising by Moscow-backed separatist forces in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, he returned to journalists operating on the ground to provide evidence that troops and the material sent to reinforce the insurrection came from Russia.

Fast forward eight years and the quality of satellite imagery, along with the ubiquity of tell-all social media posts, means that such denials have become increasingly untenable and much easier for Western analysts. and digital activists to demystify them.

And while the use of open source intelligence is by no means new, the price of acquiring satellite and flight tracking data has dropped in recent years, dramatically increasing the number of citizens who can access this information. and publish what they find online. .

What they find, very often, is valuable video evidence showing the movement of Russian troops and equipment from the Far East away from the country westward to the border with Ukraine and now also to Belarus, which has announced the joint exercises which are to begin on February 9. .

The investigation by the Russian Service of CIT and RFE/RL used an analysis of Russian-language social media posts to shed light on the extent and nature of Moscow’s military mobilization and highlight the concerns expressed by relatives of the troops headed west for deployment in Belarus and on Russia. borders with Ukraine.

The investigation, based in part on reactions to numerous posts on the TikTok video-sharing platform by people who appear to be Russian soldiers as well as conversations with friends and relatives who made some of the comments, added crucial evidence of the strengthening of the Russian military as negotiations between Russia and the West continue to lead to no breakthrough.

The work gets harder

The accuracy of information unearthed by many independent sleuths and amplified by the mainstream media puts these private analysts on “pretty much the same page” as the US intelligence community, the former US intelligence analyst said. CIAJeffrey Edmonds.

“It’s impressive how close someone can be to the outside,” Edmonds, now at the CNA Corp think tank, told Reuters. told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

But their job is getting harder and harder. Analysts say Russia has become more adept at masking its activities since its operations in 2014 and its more recent military build-up in the spring of 2021, deploying tactics such as painting Russian flags on vehicles and removing their license plates. registration in order to hide their origins. .

In May 2020, Putin signed a decree banning Russian soldiers from carrying smartphones while on duty, a direct response to the enormous embarrassment suffered by Moscow after hundreds of active troop posts in military campaigns in eastern Russia. Ukraine in 2014 and 2015.

But CIT analysts remain optimistic about the prospects for monitoring Russian troop movements as the risk of escalation continues to rise.

“Since early January, a whole flurry of videos and social media posts have surfaced showing the troops moving,” said CIT founder Ruslan Leviev. say the current time. “And local residents, for whom this is unusual, of course document all of this.”

But Leviev, a longtime open-source investigator who angered Russian authorities and reported being attacked near his Moscow home by unknown assailants in 2019, warns that the scale of Russia’s buildup does not bode well. nothing good.

“Russia has tried to justify itself by saying that these are just exercises,” he said of the deployments in Belarus. “But experience shows that exercises can easily turn directly into real military operations.

Current Time’s Aleksei Aleksandrov, Dariya Ali-zade and Ksenia Sokolyanskaya contributed to this report