What is Intel Mapper

Intel Mapper is a live open-source-intelligence (OSINT) war map. It follows two theatres around the clock: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the wider Middle East, from the Israel–Lebanon front and Syria to Yemen, the Red Sea and the Gulf. Every marker on the map is a single, dated event: a strike, a shoot-down, a ground assault, a naval incident, a capture, or a significant political statement, placed at the most precise location the sources support.

Events are gathered from monitored Telegram channels, X accounts, official military statements (for example the Ukrainian General Staff) and mapping projects such as DeepState and the Wikipedia conflict maps. Each report is read by a language model that extracts what happened, who did it, where and when, and then passed through a chain of deterministic checks: duplicate detection across channels, geocoding against our own settlement gazetteer and OpenStreetMap, country and region consistency guards, and frontline snapping for close-combat reports.

Every event carries a confidence score and a source count. One channel claiming a strike is not the same as three independent channels plus satellite-derived thermal detections, and the map shows that difference. Uncertain locations are drawn with an orange ring instead of a hard pin. Our methodology page explains the scoring in detail.

How to use the map

Switch theatres with the buttons at the top. The layer panel lets you toggle borders and control zones, event markers, the heat-map of activity, live military flights and US bases, and the Recent changes layers that hatch every area which changed hands in the last seven days (DeepState for Ukraine, Wikipedia-derived control maps for the Middle East). Click any marker for the full report, media and sources; click a control zone for its statistics. The time slider at the bottom replays borders and the previous 24 hours of events for any day since February 2026. A daily brief for each theatre is published every evening.

Coverage areas

Ukraine. The full contact line from Kharkiv to Kherson, deep-strike campaigns on Russian refineries, air bases and logistics, and Russian drone and missile waves against Ukrainian cities, with control changes taken from DeepState.

Middle East. The Israel–Lebanon front, Syria after Assad, the West Bank and Gaza, Iraq, and Iranian activity, including strikes on shipping and Gulf infrastructure.

Yemen and the Red Sea. The Houthi–Government war, Houthi attacks on shipping, coalition strikes, and control of the Bab al-Mandab approaches, using the Wikipedia control map and verified capture reports.

Today's brief — 2026-09-19

Houthis strike Saudi Arabia amid regional escalation; Ukraine reports record Russian attrition

The United States approved a $2.6 billion military aid package for Ukraine emphasizing air defense equipment delivery, coinciding with Ukraine's reported successful development and deployment of new interceptor drones designed to counter jet-powered Shahed variants. On 18–19 September, Ukrainian forces struck multiple Russian military targets including UAV command posts in Luhansk and Pokrovsk, training facilities near Novoprokopivka, and logistics sites in Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrainian General Staff reported destruction of over 50,000 Russian artillery systems since the full-scale invasion began, attributed to drone operators, reconnaissance specialists, and counter-battery teams. These metrics, while requiring independent verification, indicate sustained Ukrainian attrition capability despite significant Russian material expenditure.

Houthi forces conducted multiple ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle strikes against Saudi Arabia on 19 September, with reported impacts at Riyadh and King Fahd International Airport generating visible fire and smoke plumes. These attacks represent continued pressure on Saudi infrastructure amid the broader Yemen conflict dynamics. Saudi Arabia responded with domestic SKYWASP kamikaze drone strikes on Houthi-controlled Sanaa, marking operational deployment of Saudi Arabia's first domestically produced long-range UAV system (estimated 1,500 km range, $35K per unit). The exchange underscores persistent Saudi-Houthi military competition and Saudi Arabia's increasing reliance on indigenous weapons systems to sustain counter-operations without full coalition coordination.

Read the full Ukraine brief · Middle East brief · Archive

Latest reports

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• Tracking Houthi Strikes in the Red Sea: How Analysts Monitor Maritime Attacks
• The Israel–Lebanon Front: Geography, Actors and Understanding Strike Reports
• How Modern Air Defence Systems Work: Patriot, IRIS-T and NASAMS Explained
• Reading Confidence Scores: Making Sense of Intel Mapper's Reliability Ratings

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