I am looking for a comprehensive report about the war between Russia and Ukraine, as well as between Israel and its enemies
I am looking for a comprehensive report on the war in Ukraine, which would cover all the issues and contain reliable links to each statement. That is, an evidence-based report that mentions evidence (references to scientific studies, media, documents, rather than just a true narrative). Such a report can be used as a powerful tool for communicating with the media, politicians and activists. Do you have them and could you send them to me or tell me where to find them?
I sent a similar paragraph in English to the Ukrainian Embassy in Australia - the closest to New Zealand, where I live. I sent a similar report (with the Middle East instead of Ukraine) to the Israeli Embassy in New Zealand and to the Stand With Us project. And I sent information about both wars to Bellingcat, The Insider Russia, PragerU and Proekt Media. Two weeks after my letter, the answer came only from the Ukrainian Embassy - they attached a link to their point of view, and not to a similar report or at least parts of it; and the Stand With Us project - they sent me two links with collections of articles with links (one and two), but it takes a lot of effort to use them for a full report (if you do not see hyperlinks in this text, open the original article on Medium or Substack).
I know the point of view of Ukraine and Israel and I don’t need to be convinced of their rightness at all, I’m already on the side of Ukraine and Israel. But the problem is that I can't do anything further. I cannot convey my attitude and my political position further because I do not have the necessary tools for this. A comprehensive report based on evidence (with reliable references attached) would be such a tool.
The opinion of some of my friends that such reports will not stop the war is devoid of practical meaning. There is no silver bullet, there is no one thing that will stop the war on its own. But the absence of this report makes ending wars much more difficult.
No books, articles, lectures or video lectures by professors are suitable for this purpose because they suggest that you first trust them and take their word for it. And people don’t love to do that. Moreover, reference to authority is one of the common cognitive bias, a list of which you can find here. Cognitive bias take hold of any people, including experts and eyewitnesses of events.
How can I use the lectures of academicians and professors of any university? “Watch Yale lectures and trust them”? Do you think this will work? No, that won't work. People want evidence, comprehensive research with evidence, and debate on all sides. Even if they are not scientific experts, they understand that they can open any link or footnote and see for themselves or, conversely, point out to the authors that the link is not relevant. They are spoken to as equals, respectfully, and then they are seriously engaged.
When we lobbied for health-saving alcohol and tobacco control legislation, we had to make this report first and then succeed. You can find one of them at this link. You can read more about these campaigns in this article. That is, these reports became the basis of our success. Because there is a lot of information, a lot of opinions, but only a comprehensive report that does not ignore the opinion of the opposite side, with attached evidence, can help in solving the problem further. When people understand where and why the truth is, they are willing to join in lobbying for these measures and sponsoring aid. For many influential people, such a report is necessary. Sometimes it can be a key factor, tilt in the direction of good at a critical moment.
Unlikely that the budgets of Ukraine, Israel and their allies - the USA, Great Britain, Germany and other countries are not enough to collect evidence and build a structured narrative based on this very evidence. In fact, it is the work of three talented people involved over three months. This is an ordinary scientific-journalistic work that, as I see, no one has done yet.
I even bought a book by a well-known analyst on the situation in Ukraine - “What Caused the Russia-Ukraine War? (And How Will It End?)” by William Spaniel. And there are no links at all. There's nothing to even check. Essentially, I paid the $6 to prove and confidently state that there are no links there. In general, I also cannot use this book any further.
The closest to such a report (in this case on Israel) is Stand With Us, and some of their articles with footnotes look interesting. But this is not a complete report, this page looks like one chapter of such a report. And we need the whole report. Comprehensive. Once again, this is not years of work by hundreds of people. This is a typical full-time job for three talented, engaged people for three months. One person writes the structure and draft of the text without details, the second person tries to find facts and evidence, the third checks the references, how good the facts are and whether alternative interpretations, opinions have been studied and there are facts that contradict this. Therefore, three people is the minimum. The first strategist who can lose the overall vision if he goes into detail. The second person is a science journalist who puts this puzzle together brick by brick. A very important person, but without the first person, they may not have the proper motivation to do it or may not see the whole picture. The second person, perhaps if they finds someone else on their team, they will cope faster. But you don’t need to think that these are hundreds of people. You only need tens or hundreds of people if you have no budget and are trying to organize volunteers to create such a report. Then yes, according to a certain pattern, people do a small part of the work in their free time. If each person spends only two hours a week, then a good hundred people are really needed. What will most members of such a team do? Basically - to search, to check and to provide links to evidence. The first two groups of “strategists” and “journalists” can work with such enthusiasm that their own success can blur their eyes. Here you just need a third person (or a third group of beta testers) who will look at all this unbiasedly and look for gaps and weaknesses, as well as check the purity of information sources and point out errors, inaccuracies and ambiguities.
Some may say that such a report is not needed at all. But this opinion is wrong. Because most people believe in what is based on the truth. They just had false sources of information. Perhaps people are influenced by Putin or Hamas. Or even Ukrainians or Jews, who, trying to survive in a hostile environment (in Russia or some countries, respectively), try to repeat the narrative accepted in these countries - in order to survive. Just as they survived during the Jewish pogroms or genocide half a century ago, they are now trying to survive. You can't blame them for that. But their survival strategy cannot be made the basis for proof either. Evidence is provided to us by professional science and professional journalism. I have compiled some criteria for such a report, or rather the text that could form its basis. The criteria were first written down in a Google Form, which you can see at the link, but I'm also duplicating part of the form description here to keep that information in the body of the article.
If you want to confirm or refute statements in a particular article or write your own article, then the rules below will help you. Arguments (even those that sound very logical) or a link to a post on social networks (if the post is not a response from a public figure - only as an attribution of words to a specific person) are not relevant. Irrelevant answers cannot be used. Science and professional journalism provide us with the criteria for good evidence. For our purposes, I adapt and simplify professional criteria to those that are suitable for the material to make sense to use.
These are the criteria:
1. The link must be direct. By clicking on it, anyone could see confirmation of the words. If for technical reasons it is difficult to provide a direct link, after the link there should be a short, clear and comprehensive description of how to find confirmation of the words after clicking on the link that you attach. In some cases, professional identifiers are suitable, in science this is DOI, the format of the full name of the source is also accepted (with author, title, year, publisher), but this approach complicates the verification process. It is simple verification by any reader that is a necessary condition for such a report or article based on evidence. In all cases where possible, indicate a direct link and (not “or” - in case there is a risk that the link will stop working) - the full name of the source.
2. Formal decisions of the parties must be documented. One link to the official publication is enough. However, official reports that may be interpreted differently (for example, about the course of hostilities, the number of deaths) cannot be designated as fact and reference to them should only be in the context of their opinion about it. To strive for reliability, you should use statements from opposing parties on the same circumstance, at the same time, preferably using various independent sources (and you should verify and indicate their affiliation).
3. Regarding events for which there is no official decision of the parties, it is necessary to attach at least two sources independent from each other - for example, a direct investigation, an article by a scientist or specialist in his field (for example, a historian or sociologist). The name of the author you are referring to should be easy to check and ensure that this person is professionally engaged in the activity within which the article was written. An example of two sources independent from each other: CNN and Aljazeera (if the author is not the same person). AJ+ and Aljazeera are sources dependent on each other, so they are considered as one source (even if the articles are written by different authors).
4. Do not directly link to anonymous, amateur or unprofessional posts, including videos. In this case (for example, statements from people claiming to be eyewitnesses), you should write a separate article describing the problem that these reports support. In any case, do not cite anonymous sources. Your article should only contain links to people whose identities can be easily verified. Statements of people whose personalities are difficult to verify can only be used by professional journalists in accordance with their professional ethics and this work should not be the first in their career, their background should be easy to verify.
5. You must ensure that you have also done a good faith effort to find rebuttals to what you are saying and have made a good faith attempt to interpret the information you have in a different way. Use a professional style. For example, the word “killed” in a professional report is applicable only in relation to the personal intentional killing of one person by another person. Otherwise, you are attributing intentions to people which might not exist. And this is already propaganda. Therefore, phrases such as “Israel killed thousands of Palestinians” are propaganda. Otherwise, is there evidence that all these Palestinians were killed by the Israelis purposefully and intentionally? You must provide this evidence in order for your text to include the word “killed.” From Israel’s point of view (paraphrasing in its own words) “as a result of the terrorist attack (intentional killing of civilians) on October 7, 2023 on Israel by Hamas terrorists, approximately 1,200 Israeli civilians were killed, Israel began a war against Hamas, which is holding civilians close to their military units because of which so many Palestinians and Israelis died as a result of the fighting.” As they say, feel the difference. In one case, Israel is blamed. In the second case, Israel defends itself, while Hamas holds the Palestinians themselves hostage. Moreover, the deliberate killing of Israeli civilians is confirmed by both sides. Such key points need to be especially protected - because there is a consensus around their reality. If you care about the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians, and are working on a report on this issue, then you should propose a workable scenario in which, on the one hand, Palestinian civilians stop dying, and on the other, Israelis do not die either. It is the task of the person writing this report to describe the various scenarios using an evidence-based approach. And the same is true in the case of Russia and Ukraine.
You must build a structure where there are three acts: what happened in the past, what happened in key current period and how everything develops and what are the options for completion.
A more acute and non-linear structure looks like this:
1. What happened on the key date 02/24/2022 / 10/07/2023 and what happened in the first couple of months after that.
2. What happened years before (in the case of Ukraine, at least since 2014; in the case of Israel, it is important to mention the events of 1947).
3. What are the scenarios for solving the problem, their pros, cons, advantages and disadvantages, obstacles and limitations, as well as how the best scenario (in the author’s opinion) restrictions can be removed and obstacles bypassed.
The result was non-linear editing. You can also arrange the acts in chronological order if you like a linear narrative:
1. What happened years before...
2. What happened on the key date...
3. What are the scenarios for solving the problem...
There is already enough evidence in the public domain for both wars; this evidence just needs to be found and put together. Journalists from all over the world have already been to Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, historians have written about the ongoing events of the past. The information is already publicly available. It just needs to be found and put together.
You must build a cause-and-effect relationship based on evidence - links to sources. You should ask all parties what is missing from this report and describe all the disturbing aspects of the problem. Using an unbiased, evidence-based approach and a professional presentation style.
Write to me when you succeed or invite me to join the team - let's do it together.
The war between Ukraine and Russia, Israel and its enemies are the two most noticeable wars for me personally at the moment. However, there are other wars going on in the world, in which civilians are killed and entire nations suffer. Perhaps if we establish good evidence-based analytics practices, we will end these two wars and all other wars on earth.
About the author
Born and raised in Moscow, married, since 2020 living in New Zealand (details, main YouTube channel). In 2007–2013 in Russia advocated legislative measures in the field of healthcare (interview on this topic , telegram channel about advocacy). Wrote and published a book on this topic . In 2018, studied Adverse Childhood Experiences, (a book about it, a telegram channel) while studying on the “Science Communication” master degree course at ITMO University. Wrote a film script on this topic. Run a telegram channel and pages on Facebook and Instagram , where share own thoughts. Regularly participate in events in support of Ukraine and Free Russia (link to publications). In May 2022, wrote A plan to end the war and democratize Russia, and in October it continued (the article “The best thing is if the war in Ukraine stops in Russia”), later — Recommendations for a communication strategy for the democratization of Russia. In 2023, released a short narrative film “Relocation” - about the relocation of a Ukrainian family from Ukraine to New Zealand in the first weeks of the war.