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 — 2026-09-20

Ukraine strikes Moscow energy infrastructure; Iran tensions escalate amid U.S. strategic deployment

Ukraine executed one of its largest overnight drone strikes against Moscow, reportedly one of the largest attacks on the Russian capital since World War II. Ukrainian forces struck the Gazpromnefte-Moskovsky oil refinery in Kapotnya (Moscow's largest) with long-range drone systems and newly deployed FP-7 Pelican short-range ballistic missiles in combat debut. Ukrainian President Zelensky announced the strike targeted multibillion-dollar Russian war-financing facilities. Russia claims to have downed over 1,600 drones including 450 targeting Moscow. Ukrainian air defense reports shooting down or suppressing 101 Russian Shahed, Gerbera, and decoy drones across multiple sectors during the massed overnight attack. Additional Ukrainian strikes reportedly damaged the TEC-22 thermal power plant in Dzerzhinsk and a Russian UAV manufacturing facility near Siversk. These strikes represent a significant escalation in Ukrainian deep-strike capability and demonstrate operational maturity of domestic weapons systems.

U.S.-Iran tensions have reached a critical juncture following Trump's declaration of 'deciding mode' on Iran policy, presenting three options: military action, economic sanctions, or diplomacy. Concurrent with this statement, a U.S. B-1B Lancer strategic bomber departed RAF Fairford with full afterburners, indicating a heavy weapons load and imminent operational deployment. Trump departed Camp David early without public explanation on Saturday, with analysis suggesting correlation to Iranian escalation. Iran's Security Council has issued seven conditions via Qatar and threatened 'decisive war' if rejected. The U.S. State Department has issued coordinated security alerts across all Middle East embassies, advising Americans to exercise heightened vigilance and prepare for potential airspace closures and flight cancellations. These signals indicate elevated operational readiness across both sides.

Read the full Ukraine brief · Middle East brief · Archive

Latest reports

• One Explosion, Five Channels: How Conflict Mappers Handle Duplicate Reports
• How Russian Overnight Strikes Work: The Drone-Then-Missile Sequence
• 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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