What is Intel Mapper

Intel Mapper is a live open-source-intelligence (OSINT) war map. It follows four theatres around the clock: the Russian invasion of Ukraine; the wider Middle East, from the Israel–Lebanon front and Syria to Yemen, the Red Sea and the Gulf; East Africa, where the war in Sudan and the conflicts in Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan are mapped; and Asia-Pacific, centred on Myanmar's civil war. 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 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 war map. 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 conflict map. The Israel–Lebanon front, Syria after Assad, the West Bank and Gaza, Iraq, and Iranian activity, including strikes on shipping and Gulf infrastructure.

Sudan war map. The war between the Sudanese army and the RSF in Darfur, Kordofan, Khartoum and Gezira, with control areas from the Wikipedia map of the conflict.

East Africa conflict map. Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan on one map, with the areas held by each armed group.

Myanmar civil war map. The junta and the resistance, air strikes, captured towns, and the areas held by the Arakan Army, KIA, KNU, PDF and other groups.

Yemen and Red Sea shipping attacks map. 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 — 2026-10-17

Gulf tanker strikes and Yemen fighting; Russian drone waves and assaults across Ukraine

Russian long-range strike activity on 17 October was dominated by drones and cruise missiles. Ukrainian air monitoring tracked multiple Shahed-type and jet-powered Geran-3 drones transiting the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Konotop and Brovary areas, alongside Banderol mini cruise missiles heading toward Poltava, Dnipro and Kamyanske. The Ukrainian Air Force warned of the possible use of Russian ballistic missiles, and a probable Iskander launch from Voronezh Oblast was flagged. Zelensky said Russia was conducting massive attacks on energy infrastructure. In Romania, NATO forces reportedly shot down two drones that entered Romanian airspace, though their origin and owner were not specified. Zelensky also said Starlink terminals stop working in Ukraine above 161 km/h but function above 180 km/h in the EU, which he characterized as a planned operation that hampers interceptor drones against jet-powered Shaheds and frontline use.

Maritime security was the most immediate concern in the Middle East theatre on 17 October. The IRGC Navy said a second supertanker carrying about 2 million barrels of crude struck a naval mine and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz, and that the vessel had radar and tracking switched off while on what it called an unauthorized route. Separately, UKMTO reported a tanker struck by an unknown projectile about 68 nautical miles northeast of Al Jubayl, Saudi Arabia, and an LNG tanker came under fire from a small boat with seven occupants about 140 nautical miles southeast of Al Mukalla, Yemen. Attribution in the latter two incidents remains unresolved. CENTCOM reported that the destroyer USS Rafael Peralta was enforcing the naval blockade of Iranian ports, with 138 commercial vessels redirected as of 17 October. Air raid alerts were issued in Riyadh and Khamis Mushait according to local sources and Saudi Civil Defense, though no impacts were documented in the material available.

Read the full Ukraine brief · Middle East brief · Archive

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