The OSINT Output Hosted by Tim and Chris

By Jay Heisler, Canadian Freelance Journalist

Bio: Valerii Buzov (LinkedIn Profile) is a Ukrainian geopolitical analyst and researcher focused on war, strategy, Russian imperialism, NATO, European security, and the future architecture of the international order. His is originally from the Donetsk region, and his work is shaped not only by study and political research, but also by lived experience of Russian aggression as a historical and political reality. He writes from a clearly Ukrainian strategic and historical perspective, with a clear understanding that this war is not only about territory, but about identity, memory, statehood, and the right of a nation to exist free from empire. Valerii states that Ukraine is not a borderland, not a grey zone, and not a sphere of influence, but a nation fighting for its survival, dignity, rightful place in Europe, and for the future security of Europe itself.

What is the OSINT overlap with your current work in Ukraine?

My work intersects with OSINT primarily through war analysis, source verification, and pattern interpretation. I don’t work as a technical OSINT specialist. My main work is the geopolitical and historical interpretation of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Open-source material is important to my work because it helps connect visible developments on the ground with wider military, political, and historical processes.

I use open-source material to track Russian strike patterns, battlefield adaptation, infrastructure targeting, and the broader logic of Russian escalation.

For me, a map, a satellite image, a drone video, or an official statement is not enough by itself. It only becomes meaningful when placed within a wider strategic and historical context: Russia’s imperial way of thinking, its long war against Ukrainian identity, and its pressure on Ukraine, Europe, and the wider security order.

So yes, my overlap with OSINT is analytical rather than narrowly technical. I use open-source material as one part of a bigger method to understand Russia’s actions, Ukraine’s resistance, and the strategic direction of this war.

What is the most urgent thing for an audience of OSINT insiders to know about the situation with Ukraine right now?

The most urgent point is that Ukraine is no longer simply a battlefield of conventional war. It has become the central laboratory of twenty-first century high-intensity adaptation. Russia is expanding sustained drone and missile pressure while also pushing renewed offensive activity along key sectors of the front. At the same time, Ukraine is offsetting this pressure through tactical innovation, interceptor drones, electronic warfare, distributed strike capacity, and increasingly refined attacks on Russian logistics and military infrastructure.

Analysts who still read this war mainly through static territorial change are already behind its operational logic.

A second urgent point is that attrition in Ukraine is no longer only about manpower and artillery. It’s also about sensors, software, production cycles, adaptation speed, and the economics of interception. Ukraine’s battlefield experience is already reshaping how democratic states will need to think about air defence, drone defence, infrastructure resilience, and force survivability in the years ahead.

Third, observers must understand that Russia conducts this war across multiple layers simultaneously. It attacks cities, energy systems, logistics, morale, and political attention at the same time. The goal is not only territorial gain but also to stretch Ukraine and its partners psychologically, militarily, and financially until support becomes hesitant or fragmented. Without that wider coercive logic, the war cannot be understood accurately in strategic terms.

What would you recommend for OSINT experts who hope to focus on Ukraine?

I would recommend six things.

First, don’t romanticise proximity to the war. Ukraine is not a content field. It’s a state fighting for survival. Serious work begins with respect, discipline, and an understanding that bad analysis has real consequences.

Second, avoid platform-driven OSINT. If your method is shaped by what performs well online, your conclusions will eventually become shallow. Ukraine requires slow, cumulative, cross-source work.

Third, study Russia historically, not only technically. Many analysts can identify a weapons system, but fewer understand the continuity of Russian imperial behaviour: coercion, deception, demographic violence, destruction of identity, pressure through attrition, and exploitation of Western fatigue. Without that historical layer, technical observation stays incomplete.

Fourth, treat absence as data. In Ukraine, concealment, silence, delays, and contradictory signals often matter as much as visible footage. What is not shown can be operationally significant.

Fifth, integrate military, industrial, political, and informational analysis. A strike package, a rail bottleneck, a sanctions loophole, a propaganda line, and a diplomatic pause may all belong to the same strategic sequence.

Sixth, keep Ukraine centred as a subject, not just an object of observation. Too much commentary still studies the war through Washington, Brussels, or Moscow. Ukraine must be understood as a strategic actor in its own right.