How Data and Justice Meet to Tackle War Crimes in Ukraine

A State Department-supported effort is bringing together powerful geospatial and satellite data visualization tools to document and assess the impacts of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

At the heart of the data behind this effort is Susan Wolfinbarger, team lead for State’s Location-based Observations for Conflict Analysis, Trends, and Evidence (LOCATE) in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. Wolfinbarger details how her interests in geography led to her researching human rights and now supporting the evidence-making process at State as part of the Conflict Observatory. The public-private partnership, which includes entities like Yale Humanitarian Research Lab and Esri, aims to collect the evidence and data necessary for holding Russia accountable on the international stage for war crimes like torture, gender-based violence and starvation, as well as efforts to adopt and indoctrinate Ukrainian children.

Wolfinbarger discusses the data layers behind some of the observations, and how these analyses and assessments inform future investigations following international documentation standards.