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Вікторія ГорбікWar
18 February 2025, 09:00
2025-02-18
"We won't be looking for one Russian. It's more interesting to find a howitzer, an air defense system, or a rembase." A team of "geointer" reconnaissance personnel helped destroy almost $500,000 worth of enemy equipment. How does the team work and can you get involved?
22-year-old Vadym Glushko is the founder and CEO of the OBRIY project, where together with the technical team they create an innovative system for collecting and analyzing public data. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, a team of developers-"osinters» led by Vadym conducts geospatial intelligence for the defense forces of Ukraine. Thanks to the data that the experts provided to the military, the Ukrainian defenders managed to destroy enemy equipment worth almost half a billion dollars. Vadym Glushko told dev.ua what prompted him to engage in geospatial intelligence, how the software works, how much AI is in it, and how volunteers are selected for the search engine team.
22-year-old Vadym Glushko is the founder and CEO of the OBRIY project, where together with the technical team they create an innovative system for collecting and analyzing public data. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, a team of developers-"osinters» led by Vadym conducts geospatial intelligence for the defense forces of Ukraine. Thanks to the data that the experts provided to the military, the Ukrainian defenders managed to destroy enemy equipment worth almost half a billion dollars. Vadym Glushko told dev.ua what prompted him to engage in geospatial intelligence, how the software works, how much AI is in it, and how volunteers are selected for the search engine team.
Homegrown «osinters»
A lawyer by training and a developer by vocation, Vadym Glushko came up with the idea of creating intelligence software in 2022, with the start of a full-scale invasion. At that time, he didn’t even know the word OSINT (Open source intelligence), let alone geospatial intelligence, but he really wanted to help Ukrainian defenders.
Vadym Glushko, founder of the CyberBoroshno team and the OBRIY project (Photo from personal archive)
For Vadym, it all started almost from the first days of the full-scale war, when he, together with several like-minded people, began to search for information based on open sources about key people from the Russian army and post it in open Telegram channels. Little by little, the team of volunteers grew into a team of professionals «CyberBoroshno». Since April 2022, «CyberBoroshnovtsi» have already «spent» their might, revealing information about Russian military personnel, collaborators and crimes they committed in Ukraine.
«At first, I was a big opponent of us having geospatial intelligence, because I thought that with OSINT we would be more useful,» recalls Vadim.
However, everything changed in the fall of 2022, when the Russians launched an offensive on Vugledar. Then Vadim’s team «felt» the amount of lost equipment and, to find out if duplicates were being shown in our media, which published the destroyed Russian equipment, the volunteers began a geointernet search.
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About geolocation intelligence
Using OSINT, members of the CyberBoroshna community searched for footage of downings or battles that the enemy posted in public space and identified the equipment, buildings, or people that were in the frame.
Then the idea came to geolocate the exact location of the objects. Sometimes, to make sure that the determined geolocation is relevant, experts also resort to analyzing satellite images and refining it using satellite reconnaissance tools.
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In a situation where geolocation is not available, volunteers analyze data regarding the topography where certain geolocation systems are located. For example, in October 2024, they helped the Ukrainian Defense Forces attack a Russian oil depot in Feodosia, and on another occasion, hit an S300V air defense system in Crimea.
Geospatial intelligence is data about human activity on Earth obtained through the use and analysis of images, signals, or signatures with geospatial information.
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What is OBRIY?
While engaged in geo-provisional intelligence, specialists encountered problems in parsing, filtering, clustering information, and further work with it, and decided to create their own tool to automatically collect public enemy materials. Thus, at the end of 2023, the OBRIY system appeared, with which you can collect information from a pool of public channels.
OBRIY screen
The system selects materials already available for analysis to detect, for example, the geolocation of objects. And based on the information provided by the tool from the enemy’s open sources, decisions can be made in real time.
The model, which the developers customize for each client, is proposed to be used for filtering and processing a large amount of information for both military and civilian purposes, in particular, monitoring disinformation and various public initiatives.
OBRIY is already in the final stage of readiness, the product is actually formed, but not the entire interface has been transferred to the user part.
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How geospatial intelligence works
The solution used by the scouts is based on a visual AI model that selects and cuts out images that cannot be identified, as well as content that contains stop words specified by the developers. In addition, the model can be trained by pointing out errors.
Since artificial intelligence is not perfect, the first thing that specialists who have decided to join the CyberFlour team on a personal basis do is process all the selected materials and remove those that are irrelevant or simply uninteresting for geolocation.
OBRIY screen
«The search for locations based on video and photo materials is done with the help of human eyes, hands, desire, and patience. There is no artificial intelligence or algorithms for this,» says Vadim.
However, he explains that it is precisely to search for objects that homegrown explorers use Google Earth Pro. In order to extract objects from the OSM (Open street map) layer, the web tool for analyzing and extracting data Overpass Turbo comes in handy.
The geodata of the required objects is then determined by searching for context. For example, knowing the number of a military regiment, OSINT intelligence officers search for everything about it in public sources, and having certain landmarks, search for similar buildings or equipment in a specific sector on satellite images.
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Tasks and goals
The first cooperation of the «osinters» with the Ukrainian defenders began with FPV units and reconnaissance brigades. According to Vadim, if the scouts geolocate tactical-level objects, in particular, self-propelled guns or guns, they transmit the information directly to the soldiers of the corresponding brigades. If we are talking about strategic-level data, then they already go to headquarters or analytical centers.
«We logically already understand the value of this or that information. Conventionally, we will not look for one Russian. It is more interesting to find a howitzer, air defense missile system, or a rembase — this is more important for defeat,» explains the head of OBRIY.
According to him, the intelligence officers geolocated the objects based on various data, for example, it could be information from a prisoner or materials from a hacked computer.
Sometimes it happens that scouts find information for destruction themselves. In particular, Vadyv told how, based on a video from the Bakhmutsk SK Metallurg complex, which scouts geolocated, they ended up intercepting and destroying 7 Urals of the BC.
«After the airstrike on this equipment, you could even see it burning from a satellite,» he recalls.
Defeat of a concentration of enemy equipment and BC by defense forces (Screen «CyberFlour»)
Thanks to the data of «geointers», the personnel of the 99th regiment in Kamianets-Podilskyi were also hit, the location of which was determined by specialists on the instructions of the special services.
Currently, OSINT intelligence officers, according to Vadym, are cooperating with all departments of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, which are, in particular, the SSO, SBU, GUR and mechanized brigades. From there, they periodically transfer data that the military managed to find out to geospies so that specialists can determine the geolocation. The total number of tasks completed by Cyber Boroshno specialists has already reached 500 and they helped the Defense Forces to hit equipment worth more than $ 500 million. However, the intelligence officers are not considering the option of becoming part of one of the state structures, but are only aimed at cooperating with them so as not to lose mobility and flexibility.
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Who defends public space?
Not many people work with Vadim on the tasks of intelligence and development of the OBRIY system. About 5 specialists are involved in the work on the solution that the specialists are going to commercialize, in particular, the chief technical specialist, namely the CTO and Front-end developer, Product designer, AI engineer, NLP engineer and tester.
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About 15 specialists are engaged in geospatial intelligence on a volunteer basis. And people of completely different professions and ages work here.
«Anyone can be a geointer if they have an analytical mindset, great desire, and perseverance,» says Vadim.
In addition, he said that the «Kyberboroshnovtsi» already have extensive horizontal connections and have helped several volunteer scouts mobilize into units by specialty.
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How to become a «geointer»
Currently, the development and intelligence teams have been recruited, but the head reports that periodically, for certain needs, they conduct recruitment, information about which is published on the Cyber Boroshno channel. Candidates are usually required to fill out a questionnaire, but then all applicants are carefully checked for ties to Russia, corruption components and other criteria. Minors are also screened out. As Vadim says, out of more than 90 applicants from the last recruitment, about 25 people reached the first stage of training.
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Previously, according to the head, the intelligence team recruited people familiar with OSINT and geospatial intelligence. Recently, priorities have changed and even people with zero knowledge are being hired.
Training for new team members begins with an orientation and a talk about the specifics of the work. The next 2-3 days are spent training on the theoretical part of the material, after which all participants take a test. Only those who pass it proceed.
The remaining selected participants will undergo practical training next month. That is, every day they will receive a task where they need to geolocate an object based on different information. As a result, the top five are selected for the team based on a points system. But even after enrollment, newcomers must show their activity.
An NDA is signed with all new participants to avoid the dissemination of sensitive information.
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About money and monetization
«Cyber Flour», according to Vadim, was never intended to be commercial. The scouts work on a volunteer basis, however, in order to work, the community needs to pay certain expenses, in particular, access to servers. This is funded by donors who have been donating to support «Cyber Flour» since the community’s inception.
The developers plan to monetize the OBRIY SaaS system, but the pricing policy is still being worked out and Vadim does not disclose this information. Currently, the costs of developer salaries, according to preliminary estimates, will amount to about $20,000 per month. The team received a grant from Brave1 and is now trying to attract investment for development and market entry.
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About plans
First, the developers plan to conquer the Ukrainian market. However, they soon want to enter foreign markets, in particular, the USA and the European Union countries. According to Vadim, OBRIY sees its development direction in B2B and offering its solution to government institutions.
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