NEW RESOURCES

NHK World: NHK providing online information on daily life in Japan in Ukrainian language . “NHK has launched an online service in the Ukrainian language that provides tips for daily life in Japan. The service is for people who have evacuated from Ukraine.”

MediaZona, machine-translated to English: Who dies in the war with Ukraine. Research “Mediazona”. “Mediazona, together with a team of volunteers, studied more than 1,700 publications about the death of Russian soldiers in Ukraine. This is more than the official death toll given by the Russian Defense Ministry at the end of March; the real losses are, of course, much higher. The data we have collected allows us to judge what happens to the Russian army during the invasion. Here are some conclusions.”

Monash University: Research helping to amplify Ukrainian refugee voices. “The stories of Ukrainian refugees fleeing impacted areas are being highlighted with the help of video production toolkits developed by Monash University researchers in partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). The Indaba project, created by researchers from the Faculty of Information Technology’s (IT) Action Lab in collaboration with the IFRC, provides simple guided tools to shoot, edit and publish videos so that remote communities can collaboratively tell their stories, create historical archives of specific issues and report progress on ongoing aid programs with minimal professional support.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Radio Taiwan International: This year’s Han Kuang Exercise will take lessons from Ukraine War. “The annual Han Kuang Exercise simulates Taiwan’s armed forces repelling an attack from China. The exercise includes both simulated computer war games and live-fire drills…. Major General Lin Wen-huang says Taiwan will take what it has learned from observing the War in Ukraine. The armed forces will use those lessons to bolster the country’s defenses against asymmetric, psychological, and information warfare during this year’s Han Kuang Exercise.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Times: Italy offers to rebuild Mariupol theatre and save Ukraine’s cultural heritage. “Italy has offered to rebuild Mariupol’s theatre, a symbol of the wanton destruction of war, and to provide the assistance of its ‘monuments men’ to protect Ukraine’s artistic heritage. The offer to rebuild the Donetsk Regional Drama Theatre, where as many as 300 people may have died, was made last month by Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister.”

New York Post: Russia appears to confuse ‘The Sims’ for SIM cards in possible staged assassination attempt . “Russian security services on Monday have been accused of staging a Ukrainian assassination attempt by releasing photos of confiscated copies of ‘The Sims’ video games that some speculate were mistaken by Kremlin officers for SIM cards. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation released the bizarre photos Monday and announced that police had arrested six neo-Nazis plotting to kill Russian TV Host Vladimir Solovyov in Moscow.”

New York Times: ‘Crisis Actors’? Where Have I Heard That Before?. “Russia has long used incidents of American gun violence to support its propagandistic claims of cultural superiority. Now, during this war, the Kremlin is adopting the language of American mass shooting deniers to deny towering evidence of its army’s atrocities in Ukraine, including calling injured and killed Ukrainians crisis actors.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Microsoft says Russia hit Ukraine with hundreds of cyberattacks. “Microsoft has revealed the true scale of Russian-backed cyberattacks against Ukraine since the invasion, with hundreds of attempts from multiple Russian hacking groups targeting the country’s infrastructure and Ukrainian citizens. These attacks also include the use of destructive malware designed to take down critical systems and disrupt civilians’ access to critical life services and reliable information.”

Bloomberg: U.S. Sharing More Intelligence With Ukraine for Fight in Donbas. “The U.S. has lifted some restrictions on sharing intelligence with Ukraine as it confronts a renewed Russian military assault in the east and south, where it has backed separatist groups since annexing Crimea in 2014, according to a person familiar with the matter.”

Financial Review: How the spoils of cyberattacks are funding Russia’s invasion . “Nearly two-thirds of finance businesses hit by ransomware attacks are paying the ransom and the money is being used to fund Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a leading cybersecurity expert has warned. Tom Kellermann, the head of cybersecurity strategy at enterprise technology company VMware, who is on the Cyber Investigations Advisory Board for the US Secret Service, said Russian state-sponsored cartels were raking in hundreds of billions of dollars a year from cybercrime, and were funnelling some of it back to the Putin regime to help the Kremlin recover from the West’s economic sanctions.”

Bleeping Computer: Russian govt impersonators target telcos in phishing attacks. “A previously unknown and financially motivated hacking group is impersonating a Russian agency in a phishing campaign targeting entities in Eastern European countries. The phishing emails pretend to come from the Russian Government’s Federal Bailiffs Service and are written in the Russian language, with the recipients being telecommunication service providers and industrial firms in Lithuania, Estonia, and Russia.”

SecurityWeek: Chinese Cyberspies Targeting Russian Military. “A China-linked state-sponsored cyberespionage group has started targeting the Russian military in recent attacks, which aligns with China’s interests in the Russia-Ukraine war, Secureworks reports.”

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!