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 — 2026-09-18

Saudi pipeline cuts threaten European energy; sustained Russian strikes on Ukraine continue

Ukrainian air defense systems reported sustained threat activity throughout the monitoring period, with multiple detections of Russian reactive Shahed-136 drones transiting toward targets across Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, and Poltava oblasts. Russian airstrikes struck Sumy city with 6-7 guided aerial bombs, damaging at least four multi-storey residential buildings in the Kovpakivskyi district with casualties reported. Kherson also sustained airstrike impacts. Ukrainian drones struck the cooling unit of Kursk Nuclear Power Plant's reactor, with Russian sources claiming the cooling tower remained undamaged despite impact. A drone strike also hit an administrative building in Odesa, causing fire. These sustained air operations indicate Russia maintaining tempo of long-range strikes against civilian and infrastructure targets.

Saudi Arabia announced suspension of crude oil supplies to Europe beginning next month following attacks on its east and west pipeline infrastructure, signaling escalating vulnerabilities in critical energy systems. An Italian Eurofighter F-2000 sustained damage during an airstrike on Ta'if Air Base, though no Italian personnel were injured and the attacker remains unidentified. These incidents underscore widening security pressures on regional energy infrastructure and military assets, with potential implications for European energy markets dependent on Gulf supplies. Italy has announced unilateral deployment of warships to the Bab al-Mandeb strait to protect commercial vessels, declining to await EU consensus—a move reflecting growing emphasis on independent maritime security operations in contested waters.

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

About · Methodology · Privacy · Contact · Daily briefs · Reports · All events