This is the first in a series of posts where RuNet Echo talks to the people behind several fact-checking projects in eastern Ukraine. Amid the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, an information war between Russia and Ukraine has raged online and in the media. Much of the information warfare revolves around framing the conflict itself and arguing about its origins and implications, both historical and geopolitical, but some of the mud-slinging is a little more down to earth. According to Russian state-controlled media outlets, the Kremlin hasn't sent a single piece of military equipment to the rebels in eastern Ukraine. Moscow's narrative is that all vehicles and weapons controlled by separatists were seized from the Ukrainian military. On the other side of the conflict, Kyiv regularly states that an overwhelming number of the separatists’ vehicles and weapons are provided by Russia, saying the Ukrainian military has lost relatively minimal supplies of equipment throughout the war. While less glamorous than geopolitical speculation, the job of collecting, and verifying and/or debunking evidence of military presence and losses is nonetheless important. When it comes to public data, citizen enthusiasts are responsible for collecting the lion's share of what's available. RuNet Echo has previously covered some of the cases, but there are a number of organized initiatives focused on particular aspects of fact-finding and data verification in the eastern Ukraine conflict. Grassroots projects and individual bloggers attempt to cut through government narratives on both sides to provide at least a glimpse of the situation as it is. Their work usually amounts to collecting photographic and video evidence of battles and military equipment in eastern Ukraine, geolocating, and crowdsourcing the verification efforts to provide greater context for the collected data. Results and conclusions vary, but these citizen initiatives believe their approaches are more honest and revealing than the narratives spun by either the Ukrainian or Russian state-controlled media. Of course, while they pride themselves on being diligent with evidence, this doesn’t always prevent citizen projects from using a particular frame or agenda to cover the conflict. Accounts of a “civil war” Lostarmour.info maintains a large database of destroyed and captured military equipment, most of which it says is Ukrainian. According to the site’s administrators, the project was born out of exasperation with both the Ukrainian authorities, who tend to conceal the real losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and the self-proclaimed “Donetsk/Luhansk People’s Republics” (DNR/LNR), which “tend to overestimate greatly the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” Relying upon volunteers and crowdsourced comments, Lostarmour meticulously records the specific military equipment units and weapons that have been destroyed or captured from both the Ukrainian and separatist sides. The team that works on the photo and video database currently includes 10 people, and a few dozen other volunteers contribute edits in the comments under relevant sections. Every single entry is backed up with photos or videos, but there are no Russian flags to be found in the lists, though there are plenty from the DNR and LNR. Screenshot of the Lostarmour.info armored vehicle database. Lostarmour chooses to frame the conflict as a “civil war” instead of a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, so the focus is entirely on Ukrainian hardware, and they categorize the equipment as either “destroyed” or “trophy” (ostensibly meaning Ukrainian items captured by the separatists). While that does not help explain the provenance of some of the equipment that other citizen fact checkers claim is Russian, Lostarmour sees their work as historically significant and aiding in “objective information control.” They also hope to influence Ukrainians’ opinion of the conflict and their assessment of whether it’s worth joining the fight. Самое главное – это раскрытие реального масштаба потерь военной техники на Донбассе перед населением Украины. Тут стоит отметить, что опираясь на фото и видеофакты, Lostarmour дает максимально консервативную оценку потерь, реальные потери значительно выше тех 700 единиц техники, внесенных в базу проекта. За каждой грудой искареженного металла, как правило стоят жизни экипажей, и судьбы их семей. The most important [motive] is to disclose of the true scale of losses of military equipment in the Donbass to the people of Ukraine. It’s worth noting that Lostarmour gives the most conservative estimate of the losses based on photographic and video facts. The real losses are significantly higher than the 700 pieces of equipment that are in the project’s database.