OSINT-y Goodness, №2 — UNIAN
Keeping with theme of my first OSINT-y Goodness post about international news in English, I bring you UNIAN (Ukrainian Independent Information Agency of News.) They offer a variety of news-related services, in addition to their news reporting. They have a photojournalism image bank and news monitoring services.
UNIAN (or УНІАН in Ukrainian) is based in Kiev and has a web presence in English at unian.info, Ukrainian at unian.ua and Russian at unian.net.
As far as their English-language site goes, they offer articles under the categories of:
- Politics
- Economy
- War
- Kyiv (Kiev, the capital city of the Ukraine)
- Society
- World
UNIAN also has sections for Pictures, Opinions, and Publications. The photos in the “Pictures” section is a combination of their own, like, “Ukraine’s Most Beautiful Lakes”
and photos from other journalism outlets reporting news, like, “Incident at Crimea Bridge Construction Site in Nearby Village.”
Their Opinions page has longer, thoughtful coverage on a wide variety of topics. As of the creation of this blog post, their most recent op-ed piece is entitled, “ Why Russia put on hold “humanitarian aid” to Donbas.”
UNIAN’s Publications page offers long reads on investigative journalism pieces and weekly summaries of news. A piece by Anna Bredihyna from February 15, 2019 was about, “Renewable Energy in Ukraine is on the Verge of Change.”
One of the quirky things is that UNIAN’s site is free, although there is a subscription option that I will get into. So, you will see ads from time to time. These ads may not be in English, even if you are on the English site. So, that’s fun! Variety is the spice of life, no?
Most of the information on the UNIAN site is free. You will find some articles with a little lock next to them, indicating that you need a paid subscription to read it. If memory serves me, from when I last inquired about their subscription, I believe it was USD $150.00 per year for the paid access to articles, and that also got you monthly emails with news round up and summaries. But, overall, you can easily utilize the site with the free material. If the Ukraine is of intense interest to you for your research, it’s probably best to pay for the supplemental material and access. The full benefits of a UNIAN subscription are outlined here.
The last thing I will comment on is the angle or voice of UNIAN. I am certainly not an expert in international politics, so this is my best guess. It appears as though this publication is firmly pro-Ukraine, meaning, it doesn’t appear to be covertly a pro-Russia voice. Again, to the best of my little knowledge on the politics of this region. I had some people I know who are more skilled in such things pretty much agree to my assessment. What still remains unclear, as per my experts, is exactly their position on world politics. Overall, the experts I consulted verified that they themselves used UNIAN as a news source and thought it was a solid publication for news from this region.
Lastly, UNIAN also has a presence on social media.
- UNIAN in English on Facebook
- UNIAN in English on Google+(until April 2, 2019)
- UNIAN in English on VKontakte (aka VK)
- UNIAN in English on Twitter
Refreshingly, they still have an RSS feed. (RSS isn’t dead!)
If you have a need to know (or just an interest in) the happenings in the Ukraine, UNIAN is a solid source with lots of English articles.
