“Trust and reputation are what keep DeepState going today.” Interview with project co-founder Roman Pogorily on RESTART

How to grow from a Telegram channel to a large-scale project involving hundreds of people, working directly with the military and gaining international recognition?

During the RESTART conference, Molfar’s strategic director Ievgeniia Bespalova spoke with Roman Pogorily, co-founder of DeepState, an analytical tool that helps users see the course of the war in real time. Roman talked about the beginning of work on the map, the challenges faced by the team, user trust, and how technology is changing the perception of war.

We publish the most interesting insights from the conversation below.

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How did the idea for the DeepState project come about?

We never expected DeepState to see the light of day. We started with a regular Telegram channel [back in 2021 — ed.], and then we began tracking the movements of Russian troops, which started to get people interested. And on the day of the full-scale invasion, we realized that this project could be both interesting and useful. In practice, that’s exactly what happened.

The first prototype of the map was on the Google platform, after which we were blocked. Later, we created our own website and began to gain momentum: our audience and trust in our work grew, the first donations appeared, and the story gained scale.

What is an interesting case of interaction with international media that comes to mind?

The most striking case was related to the offensive on Kursk. Ukraine, as we know, did not report on what was happening there. And in this information vacuum, we were perceived as a semi-official source. The media and journalists began to write to us, asking us to tell them everything: whether we were under pressure, where the information came from, how reliable it was.

How do you approach combating fake news and misinformation?

Verifying information is a huge, voluminous process that our internal service works on. Our team now has more than 100 people working in various areas, mostly OSINT analysts, but there are also volunteers and legal specialists, not to mention our Telegram channel.

If we have to choose between speed and accuracy, we choose the latter. People often come to us to check whether someone has marked something correctly. Because of this, we realized that we will never rush, because we have a great responsibility both for the accuracy of the data and for people’s lives. In war, every mistake poses a risk to soldiers, medics, or volunteers, and it is important for them to understand where the enemy is if they have no other data or if it is unreliable.

Accordingly, each of our markings represents people’s lives, and we cannot afford to rush. All information must be verified, coordinated, analyzed, and only then presented in some form of analytics or on maps.

You started with two people, and now there are more than 100 of you. Can you tell us about the beginning of your journey, step by step?

Step 1 was simply doing what we did at the beginning, without realizing where it was all leading. It was a kind of entry point onto this path. Then we began to understand our business, trust in us as a team began to grow, we launched a website with a map, and the first donations appeared. This was around February-April 2022.

Step 2 — responsibility grew. DeepState began to take shape not just as a Telegram channel, but as a project with its own resources, people, and area of responsibility. There was a need to understand management processes.

In the summer and fall of 2022, against the backdrop of the liberation of the Kyiv region and other regions, there was a growing need for high-quality OSINT. So by the fall of that year, we already had about a dozen people: we brought in more people to work, increased administrative resources, distributed responsibilities, and began communicating with government agencies and military leadership. It was after this that the next stage of DeepState began as a project.

What technological challenges did you face, and how did you solve them?

The first challenge was the map. When we started to be blocked after creating the map on the Google platform — which was the easiest way — we faced the fact that we only had one lead developer at the time. This created a need for developers, which we solved in literally a week.

The second-biggest challenge was the need to process a large amount of information in order to mark it on the map. We also had to find specialists for this.

The third challenge was the military personnel who came to us with requests against the backdrop of the 2023 counteroffensive. They came to us with requests to add GPS to the map so that they could orient themselves. Then we added an offline map by downloading the data. And we had to do all this very quickly. The project gradually gained functionality to meet the requests of both civilians and the military.

What are DeepState’s technical plans right now?

We are currently preparing an upgrade for the map and plan to add a cool feature that will cheer people up a bit and help them take their minds off the shelling and the light. In addition, we are already thinking about how we will adapt to working in the event that the war stops or ends, so that the map does not become irrelevant and uninteresting.

We are also planning additional projects, such as the previously announced OSINT project “Kolosal.” We will develop it and bring it to the international market, as there is demand not only in Ukraine but also around the world.

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We are also creating a legal department — a whole consulting service that allows people with legal analytical and accounting skills to use their knowledge in commerce or to help the military directly on the front lines.

Can you share an interesting case where your map influenced government decisions?

Dobropillya is probably one of our most striking cases in recent times. At that time, information that actually concerned the entire Donbas region was being suppressed. The issue reached the highest levels of government, as negotiations with the US were ongoing at the time, and Russian sources were actively spreading fake narratives that were even being repeated in the West, notably by Donald Trump.

The DeepState team conducted its own analysis and decided to publish an updated map, despite the significant risks. This decision led to real change: the situation began to be discussed at the state level, and the fake narratives were successfully refuted.

As someone who develops DeepState’s strategy, what do you think are the project’s performance indicators and greatest achievements?

Everything at once. When you are mentioned in the media, when people talk about you at every turn — that is already an indicator of effectiveness, and something to be proud of. When the discussion goes beyond the country’s borders, and you see that your product is used not only by ordinary people, but also by diplomats, attachés, ministers, and government officials — that raises the bar and motivates the team.

If we talk in terms of “currency,” the greatest value for our team is the increase in the number of dead Russians. We know that we can influence this every day, and that is also part of our effectiveness.

And then there are people’s reviews. When someone writes, “Thank you, in 2022 I used your map and saved a life,” that’s the best motivation.

And, of course, responsibility. It is both a burden and a driving force. Because it is the level of trust and reputation that we have built and that forces us to maintain high standards every day.

You mention trust. How do you maintain this trust that has been built up over years of work?

Previously, we simply presented information as it was, but now we also have to defend it. Various conspiracy theories are emerging, pressure is being exerted on us, and we are being accused of being dependent on various centers of influence. Some say that we work for the Office of the President, others say that we work for Petro Poroshenko, and still others say that we work for someone else.

We do not work for anyone. And maintaining this independence, which is equal to trust, is the most difficult thing. But when they say that we are not allowed to show something, we simply come out with an update that dispels any doubts.

When there is talk that they want to shut us down, it only confirms that someone wants to influence us but cannot. So we just continue to show everything as it is.

Trust and reputation are what keep DeepState going today.

How do you see your future and the future of the project after the war ends?

Perhaps we will simply return to our previous lives and do what we did before. I was a lawyer, my colleague Ruslan was a marketer. Maybe we will be able to return to our lives and that will be it. Or perhaps we will find our purpose elsewhere and share our experience and skills with others. 

But these are all plans for after the victory. For now, it is still far away, so we continue to do what we have always done: maintain this credit of trust, help kill Russians, and, of course, improve our project and our entire team.

This material was created as part of the RESTART conference. The event was made possible thanks to the event partners: Molfar, PrivatBank, Oschadbank, Sens bookstore, idealers, Tvoye Kolo, S-PROF, Foundation Coffee Roasters, Škoda, Headway Inc, Everstar, CLUST, Megapolis+, Vizia, Morshynska, Gulliver, Bolt, Greendezeen, Kooperativ, Techosystem, and DEV Challenge.