The Russians Turning to Google Maps in Search of Missing Soldiers
Google Maps is also different from a paper map; if you annotate the latter, no one else sees your notes. Google Maps allows us to collectively annotate and create a new type of shared knowledge about the world. With a few exceptions, we all use the same Google Maps, regardless of our location. Generally, each review is visible to everyone.
Most people use reviews to seek pleasures and avoid unpleasantness. Is the coffee better in this cafe or that one? Is the food as good as in the photos? Will this dry cleaner damage my clothes? This is still largely the case in Russia, although some places elicit digital cries of despair. In a review of Dodo’s Pizza, a restaurant located right next to the 1602 Military Hospital, a user named Aleksandr informed the world that the food is “always perfectly prepared” and that “everything is clean and the staff is polite.”
In recent years, the Russian government has increased its control over the digital lives of civilians. Weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin blocked Russians from accessing Facebook, Instagram, and X. Two years later, his government limited YouTube and blocked the encrypted messaging app Signal; this month it also blocked WhatsApp. Google hasn’t been completely banned, although Google Maps is sometimes disrupted by government interference. Russians using VPNs could still access banned websites. The government has therefore taken action against VPNs, most of which are now unreliable. Even searching for information online can be risky. Last fall, a man who had searched for a Ukrainian military unit was arrested by federal agents and charged with “illegal internet searching”; reports suggest his internet service provider may have passed the contents of his search to Russian security services.
Instead of Western online tools, the Russian government encourages the use of domestic alternatives: VKontakte instead of Facebook, Max instead of Signal, Yandex instead of Google. Yandex, a search engine founded around the same time as Google in the 1990s and which offers its own maps service – Yandex Maps – is a frequent target of Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, whose role is to “ensure the stability of society” by monitoring and censoring the media, according to the regulator’s website.
Compliance takes many forms; Yandex removed images of bombed houses in Mariupol, removed a pin that marked the grave of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny and stopped showing search results from news sites blacklisted by the government. But censorship can have unexpected effects. Last summer, Yandex followed orders from the Defense Ministry to jam the sites of military installations in Moscow. “At the same time, all these facilities are displayed on Google Maps,” a Ukrainian technology blog reported. “Now, behind the blurred areas, it is clear where exactly the companies of the military-industrial complex are located.”
On Google Maps, Rostov is easy to find by zooming in on the area where the Russian border meets the Sea of Azov. On Yandex it is more difficult to use this method. In 2022, Yandex Maps stopped showing borders, not only between Russia and its occupied territories in Ukraine, but everywhere. “The emphasis will be on natural features and not national boundaries,” the company said.
Rostov is one of the largest Russian cities located near the Ukrainian border, a military town that is home to around a million residents. Many residents are veterans of the Russian wars: men who fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine. Its proximity to the border makes it vulnerable to Ukrainian drone attacks, which regularly target Russian military sites and energy infrastructure. Sometimes a “drone danger” alert appears on the screens of Rostov residents. One night in January, the Russian army reportedly shot down twenty-five Ukrainian drones over the Rostov region; a civilian was killed and debris from a drone crashed into a building, injuring four others.
