How to stay connected in uncertain times
The Internet access restrictions in Ukraine with the Russian invasion are likely, up to a complete “shutdown”.

Here is a list of apps to help you stay online during these challenging times:

Reliable VPN services (https://t.me/exploitex/2799) - a selection of good VPNs that will protect your Internet traffic and allow you to access blocked resources.

Censor Tracker (https://censortracker.org/) is an extension that will help you bypass blocking and find out which sites are following you.

Psiphon VPN (https://www.psiphon3.com/en/download.html) is an optional VPN service specifically designed to support users during a total internet outage.

Tor Browser (https://tor.roskomsvoboda.org/) is an anonymous and confidential browser. Currently blocked in the Russian Federation, how to bypass the blocking, read this instruction (https://t.me/exploitex/2607).

Offline messengers (https://t.me/exploitex/2024) — operate within a relatively small radius using Bluetooth.

Investigating the use of Cluster Munitions in Civilian Areas
There are more and more reports of cluster munitions used in civilian areas within Ukraine.

In recent week, social media images and videos have allowed a group of conflict monitors and open source researchers to geolocate the impact sites of several cluster munitions to civilian areas within Ukraine.

Here are their findings:
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/02/27/ukraine-conflict-tracking-use-of-cluster-munitions-in-civilian-areas/

The use of facial recognition in an OSINT investigation
This Russian propaganda Military video posted on Telegram by what seems to be a Chechen Muslim fighter, triggered a full-on OSINT investigation.

You can watch how the investigation unfolds in the comment thread of this tweet:
https://twitter.com/OSINT_Tactical/status/1498694266754899978

Here's how to quickly identify deep fake and diss information on image/video content with publicly available tool:

1️⃣ Reverse image search in Yandex, Google and TineEye reveals facts borrowing content that is not related to the events covered. To simplify the detection of fakes, there is even a special INVID Verification Plugin that connects to Chrome and Firefox browsers.

2️⃣ Examining metadata in Jeffrey's Image Metadata Viewer allows you to find out when, where and from what device a particular photograph was actually taken. Similar service - Image Edited

3️⃣ Identify changes (edits) have been made to the original image with Forensically . An alternative service for this is Ghiro.

4️⃣ Deepfake detection in KaiCatch allows you to detect abnormal facial distortions with 90% accuracy in photos and videos.

How to investigate and detect users identity on Telegram
Here are the search criteria, methodologies and sources that will allow you to identify users on Telegram:

ID:
@userinfobot (Find ID)
@CheckID_AIDbot (Find ID)
@username_to_id_bot (Find ID)

Phone Number:
checker (Phone Checker)
TgAnalyst_bot (Find Phone)
eyeofgod (Find Phone)
@anonimov_bot (Find Phone)

Name OR Nickname:
@maigret_osint_bot (Find Nickname)
whatsmyname (Find Nickname)
mail (Find Name)

Avatar Photo:
search4faces (Find Photo)
findclone (Find Photo)
yandex (Find Photo)

Participation in Chats:
@telesint_bot (Find Chats)
@tgscanrobot (Find Chats)
TelegramScraper (Chats Parser)
TeleParser (Chats Parser)
TG-Parser (Chats Parser)

Text & Messages:
commentgram (Find Messages)
telegago (Find Messages)

Location Data:
@locatortlrm_bot (Check Location)
telegram-nearby (Check Location)

IP & Device:
@FindStickerCreatorBot (Sticker Author)
canarytokens (Check IP)
iplogger (Check IP)

The Russian government has released a list of 17,576 IP addresses that were allegedly used to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks targeting Russian organizations and their networks.

Many of the IP addresses are owned by resident Internet users who could face legal charges if their government decides not to turn a blind eye to their cyber activity.

Read information security measures.

How to track unfolding events in Russia-Ukraine war.
The Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map is a crowdsourced effort to map, document and verify information in order to provide reliable information for policymakers and journalists of the on-the-ground and online situation in and around Ukraine.
https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor

How to analyze videos on YouTube using OSINT tools.
YouTube is the most popular video hosting platform in the world, and knowing how to extract additional information about a video or it's origin can be very useful for combating fake news and documenting offenses.

Keep in mind, to identify fake photos/videos we published a separate selection https://t.me/espyOSINT/7

1️⃣ youtube-metadata (Metadata Analysis)
2️⃣ citizenevidence (Metadata Analysis)
3️⃣ invid-verification (Browser Extension)
4️⃣ anilyzer (Frame-by-frame Playback)
5️⃣ watchframebyframe (Frame-by-frame Playback)
6️⃣ youtube-geofind (Search by Geolocation)
7️⃣ savefrom (Download Video)
8️⃣ truepic (Video Authentication)

Coinbase, one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchange platforms, has announced that it is blocking access to over 25,000 blockchains -addresses associated with Russian individuals and legal entities. Earlier, representatives of Binance and Coinbase added that while they will not block all Russian accounts on their platforms, cryptocurrency exchanges will take steps to identify all sanctioned entities and individuals and block their accounts and transactions.
https://blog.coinbase.com/using-crypto-tech-to-promote-sanctions-compliance-8a17b1dabd68

New tool for Twitter followers/account link analysis
We got a tip for a new online tool by Brian Deterling called Tweepdiff. Using this tool anyone can look for followers or accounts that are followed by two or more Twitter accounts. The handy thing is, that no login is required, simply fill in the account names and off you go. https://tweepdiff.com/

Experts Debunk Staged Pre-War ‘Provocation’ in the Donbas
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ongoing, it’s easy to forget the flurry of dubious provocations and staged events that appear to have been designed to implicate the Ukrainian armed forces and drum up military aggression in the days before the invasion.

Here's how a group of OSINT experts debunked the staged pre-war ‘provocation’ in the Donbas, using ‘Exploiting Cadavers’ and ‘Faked IEDs’.