Mobilizing Civilian Surveillance in the War in Ukraine
In this post, Simon Hogue reflects on his article ‘Civilian Surveillance in the War in Ukraine: Mobilizing the Agency of the Observers of War’, which appeared in the 21(1) issue of Surveillance & Society.
On 23rd May 2022, Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old tank unit sergeant from the Russian army, was convicted of war crimes by a Ukrainian court and sentenced to life in prison (later reduced to 15 years by an appeals court). Shishimarin had pleaded guilty to killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov in the early days of the invasions. During the trial, the young Russian sergeant explained he shot Shelipov “because the man was talking on a cellphone and they feared he would report their location.”
Shelipov’s murder highlights the complicated situation that the use of surveillance technologies by civilians during wartime creates. Recording tools embedded into smartphones facilitate civilian involvement in conflicts and blur the frontier between participation in and observation of war. Yet, this situation gets an additional twist when authorities ask their population to mobilize for the war effort.
In my article for Surveillance & Society, I question how the Ukrainian government and Western allies mobilize populations against the Russian invader.
Sure, the civilian surveillance practices seen in the war in Ukraine are not entirely novel. Western authorities have grown accustomed to asking individuals to remain vigilant and report suspicious objects and activities. Similarly, social media, open-source information, and surveillance technologies have played an increasing role in documenting violence and helping non-governmental organizations record alleged human rights violations and war crimes by authoritarian regimes.
Yet, the war in Ukraine shows characteristics unseen in other conflicts. The first is the intensity of civilian participation across multiple fronts: from the live recording of the war to digital investigations and crowdfunding initiatives. Civilian participation is made possible in part by the normalization of smartphones and mobile internet connection across Ukraine and the West. Significantly, it is also a consequence of the efforts deployed by the Ukrainian government and Western allies to mobilize civilians into action.
In the article, I look more specifically at Kyiv’s virtual “call to arms,” asking Ukrainians to record and share intelligence about the Russian army’s or related suspicious activities and evidence of alleged war crimes or property destruction through dedicated platforms. I also look at how the US government worked to incorporate digital investigators’ human rights activism in building the Western war narrative.
Digital technologies have empowered civilians in all spheres of politics, including war. In Ukraine, authorities harness civilian agency as operational or narrative weapons, pushing patriotism and morality forward to convince individuals to participate in the war.
This mobilization should worry human rights activists, academics, and policymakers concerned with the increasing militarization of Western societies. Even from the remote position that surveillance technologies allow, participation in war transfers the risks of violence from the state to civilians.
