Putin's War - The Daily Brief - March 31
5 weeks ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. After some initial gains, their progress rapidly slowed. Now, every day for the past week, Ukraine has retaken more territory than it's lost.
See this thread for a series of maps and downloadable data.
To highlight the significance of the past week, here is a gif showing changes compared to a similar map I made last week. All the areas circled in blue are where Ukrainian forces have gained territory, in red shows where Russian forces have.
(ignore the changing colour scale)
These maps show the forward line of Russia's troops. A significant portion of the land behind these lines remains outside of what I would define as their firm control. See this map below for a more detailed map of territory under firm Russian (red) and Ukrainian (blue) control.
The challenge for Russian forces approaching Kyiv from the East is much clearer in this view. They have only recently managed to establish supply lines to their forward troops in Brovary, and these have constantly been destroyed and attrited by Ukrainian forces.
If any journalist or interested person wants to download this control data for your own visualisation or to explore in Google Earth, you can download the file here mega.nz/file/2FBEWCDI#…
🤙 Please credit me in any maps made from this data 😊
Because of the scale of the base data, some areas are overly generalised and please don't take it as a tactical map at the city level. I have tried to map with as much detail as possible in areas like Mariupol
For a more detailed map of these areas please see @Militarylandnet. They have very good and reliable maps.
The difference between the forward line of Russian troops and the areas that I assess to be under their firm control (meaning they are able to prevent the fielding/maneuvering of significant units of enemy forces) is clear in this map, so are the difficulties for Russian troops.
Early on in this war, I was publishing maps that only showed Russian troop movements across the countryside, as Russia had not made many attempts to secure the flanks or rear of their positions. This map is still relevant, but a changed Russian strategy makes it less central.
But, it has allowed me to consistently map the progress of Russian soldiers in Ukraine over the 35-days of war. This video shows that progress and subsequent recapture of territory by Ukraine (please view in full screen as some early days are less clearly marked).
Or, this map showing the forward line of Russian troops, since March 11th (when I started making these maps).
A number of the changes are the result of more information being available and not necessarily genuine change on that day, so keep that in mind.
Or, a video showing the areas under control every day since March 22nd. The same disclaimers apply.
I'll put some close-up crops of the key areas in the tweets below.
Firstly, a close-up of Kyiv and the axes that Russia is attacking the city from.
(The dates are cropped out, sorry).
Most importantly (imo) you can see Russia's attempts to develop a secure supply route to Brovary that keeps getting harassed and attacked.
Next, the Southern-Front, from Mykoliav to Mariupol. Here, Russia has lost considerable ground around Mykoliav, while starting a new push to Kryvyi Rih, which has now stalled and in parts been repelled.
The slow grind in Mariupol continues.
And finally, the Sumy/Kharkiv/Lugansk fronts. In Sumy Russia has recently suffered an almost-complete defeat in the region, lifting the defacto siege on Sumy.
In Kharkiv and Lugansk, Russia has made some recent progress around Izyum and Rubizhne. Some Ukrainian gains too.
COVID put me out of action for a few days, so excuse the lack of updates, but as you can see, I was spending my time trying to get a clearer picture of some of the areas where the situation was unclear. I think it is mostly accurate now!
Thanks for reading to here!
PS. if anyone wants to georeference the 'forward line' and 'movements' map please DM me and I can send you the full-res files along with a set of GCPs to georeference the raster map!
BTW. Here's a map of all the settlements that have been recaptured by Ukrainian forces so far today.
Already adding to that...
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There's a horrendous amount of violence happening over the past few days in Syria, and a tremendous amount of uncertainty in numbers, details & actors. Yet it's astounding just how few people (including mainstream journalists) are engaging with these incidents in any good faith.
So many people are visibly giddy at the idea that the new Syrian government is committing atrocities. And as a result, absolutely misrepresenting the violence that is occurring. It's pulling in the pro-SDF crowd (biji!biji!) the Assadist crowd (counter-revolution!), the pro-Israel crowd (only the IDF can protect minorities!), the idiot Westerners (Assad was the thin blue line!) and even mainstream journalism (finally some spice to report).
And as a result, its the most counter-productive information environment I've seen around Syria since the chemical attack information ops.
It's imperative we find the details of these atrocities, who is involved and hold them accountable. It's crucial this is prevented from becoming a wider sectarian conflict.
And it's wild that most reporting and commentary is acting as a barrier to this, not a help.
🧵Look towards the light.
As Rebel forces in Syria advanced across Syria & never stopped a key question was why the Regime evaporated. Syria by night provides some clues on how the Regime's social contract collapsed.
Read my analysis here
& read onaspistrategist.org.au/just-look-at-t…
There are three pillars to why the Regime collapsed so suddenly and drastically: 1. Complete lack of foreign firepower and air support 2. Increased professionalism and good governance in Opposition territory 3. Economic stagnation and the collapse of Assad's social contract.
I'm sure lots will be written on that first pillar, @azelin recently wrote a detailed and helpful article on the 2nd (warontherocks.com/2024/12/the-pa…), and @E_of_Justice's thread here is helpful too x.com/E_of_Justice/s…
I think the rest of the world just has to realise the US we thought we all knew probably just doesn't exist and hasn't for a while. We need to shift our assumptions and look at the US in the same way we look at India.
Harris didn't lose this race, and post mortems are useless. America made an informed and considered choice and picked the man they did. There's probably not much a reasonable democratic campaign could've done to change that. America saw Trump. And they liked him.
This also isn't a slight on India, it's a remarkable (and deeply flawed) country that we work with productively and well, it's just an entirely different ballgame (and sense of exceptionalism), and honestly the lens we will need to look at the States through imo.
🧵On May 17, fire swept through Rohingya neighbourhoods in Buthidaung.
Satellites show what burnt and when, and my new investigation reveals an arson campaign against 50-60 villages & demonstates who carried it out.
Through April and May, arson attacks burnt around 900 acres and over 10,000 homes across Buthidaung township in the most concerning and dangerous bout of sectarian and communal violence since the 2017 pogrom that expelled Rohingyas from much of northern Arakan state.
As flames rose above Buthidaung town on the night of May 17th, the activist community and eyewitnesses pointed the finger at the Arakan Army, an ultra-nationalist Ethnic Resistance Organisation rapidly capturing that part of Burma. Something the AA viciously denied.
🧵A very brief OSINT methods thread to share how I found the location of a Burmese junta camp that was captured by the resistance today, it's a method I've used a lot for more obscure unnamed places that would be nearly impossible to find otherwise.
Today news came out from a reputable local media source of a junta camp that was captured in Southern Myanmar, normally news in Burma is reported with the name of a nearby village or at least the township. But not here, only that it was in the KNLA's 4th Brigade 11th Battalion.
The KNLA's 4th Brigade operates in Tanintharyi Region, and google searching for info about the 11th battalion shows it is mainly active in Bokpyin township
But of course, finding one tower with a loose lead of maybe a township is going to be tricky.bnionline.net/en/news/killin…
I've started reading Our Enemies Will Vanish, a masterful book on the Ukraine War by @yarotrof. Highly recommend it. It contains heaps of tidbits and insights that even someone who followed the invasion closely (i'll count myself) had no idea of.
I'll share some threaded here.
@yarotrof (get your hands on the book if you possible can, the tidbits here are just the tip of the iceberg, truly recommend reading the whole thing).
Firstly, this account of a meeting between Bill Burns and Putin months before the invasion where Putin cited US' impotence post Afghanistan
@yarotrof And that Ukraine's military preparations on the heel of US intel warnings were so secret that even Washington had no idea about them (to prevent info going from GUR > DC > Kyiv > Russian Fifth Column)