AMK Mapping

The situation for Russia in the Kramatorsk direction has deteriorated significantly in the last week. A lot of important areas on the tactical heights east of the city have been lost.

In case it wasn't already obvious, Trump's statement about an energy ceasefire is a lie. Russian Geran-4/5 jet-drones have been attacking various energy facilities in Ukraine, including the TEC-5 Thermal Power Plant near Kharkiv, the 750 kV "Kyiv" Substation, and the 330 kV "Novokyivska" Substation, among others.

Before and after the pushes by the Houthis today:

Luhansk Oblast holds

Russian forces have recaptured over the village of Vodyane, Velykyi Burluk direction, Kharkiv Oblast (Kupyansk District). Pre-war population: ~124. Total land area: ~2.30 km². The second battle for Vodyane lasted approximately three weeks.

Russian forces have recaptured the village of Anyshchyne, Velykyi Burluk direction, Kharkiv Oblast (Kupyansk District). Pre-war population: ~176. Total land area: ~1.30 km². The third battle for Anyshchyne lasted approximately three weeks.

Ukrainian forces have recaptured the village of Novolyubivka, Lyman direction, Luhansk Oblast (Svatove District). Pre-war population: ~99. Total land area: ~0.78 km². The second battle for Novolyubivka lasted approximately three weeks.

Ukrainian forces have recaptured the village of Rozkishne, Kostyantynivka direction, Donetsk Oblast (Kramatorsk District). Pre-war population: ~152. Total land area: ~0.21 km².

Ukrainian forces have re-established control over the village of Mykolaipillya, Kostyantynivka direction, Donetsk Oblast (Kramatorsk District). Pre-war population: ~483. Total land area: ~0.93 km². The battle for Mykolaipillya lasted approximately 1 month. Note: Mykolaipillya was never under full Russian control, but it reached the criteria of being at least 50% contested for a post to be made about it.

Heavy fog over Kramatorsk this morning. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces will probably use this fog as cover against drones to accumulate, consolidate, and bring forward reinforcements to the frontline east of the city. There is also a possibility of deep infiltrations being carried out, especially by Russian soldiers.

A lot of people ask: why don't those civilians leave? Why are there still 1,600 civilians still in Lyman? Well, some cant leave, but most, who have remained there for the 5 years of war, choose to stay there, either because they are waiting for the Russian Army as "liberators" or because they have lived in their house their whole lives and don't know anything else. By this stage of a battle, its usually a combination of both. One quite striking example was, when earlier this year where the frontline looked something like what is shown on the map, some of the civilians in Shandryholove, which was under Russian control at the time, would simply walk down the road from the village, cross over the frontline, and enter Ukrainian-controlled Svyatohirsk to buy food and medicine from a shop there, and then simply return back across the frontline to their homes and basements in Shandryholove. This is, of course, only able to occur due to the very small number of soldiers on each side actually concentrated along the frontline, and those who are there being hidden away to avoid being detected by drones. Something similar occurred in the Vovchansk direction earlier this year, where civilians living in the villages of Lyman and Synelnykove would walk south to the village of Buhaivka to buy food and medicine from a store and then return across the frontline to their homes. In Kostyantynivka, some older civilians would drive to Druzhkivka (before the city was on the frontline) to collect their pensions, and then return to Kostyantynivka, where fighting was already taking place within the city at the time.

The ruins of Lyman, Donetsk Oblast. October 2026. 3 battles and nearly 2 years of fighting since May 2022. The most recent estimates indicate up to 1,600 civilians remain in the city, despite all the destruction and seemingly endless back-and-forth fighting.

By tomorrow, I plan to be back to my usual posting schedule - once I have completed a number of unrelated tasks outside of my reported that I had lined up. Tomorrow I plan to release a full series of much-needed frontline map updates from the last few weeks in Ukraine for each sector, and will likely go into some deeper tactical-level analysis on specific areas which need some more attention. I'll also return to posting about each side's mid-to-long-range strikes on most days, and will probably begin talking more about the situation in the Middle East again, with a focus on the Gaza Strip, Yemen, the West Bank, and the Persian Gulf. Thank you for your patience!

The amount of new people using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to try map the frontlines in Ukraine and getting everything wrong has massively increased recently. The vast majority of posts I see of newer mappers showing Sentinel-2 imagery, and claiming it supports their analysis of a given frontline change are completely incorrect in their assessments. I've been using it for this purpose for over two years now - since well before it was commonly used for mapping frontline changes - and I didn't properly implement it into my map updates until a little over a year ago when I was fully confident in my abilities, and had observed enough changes to confirm my hypotheses on what each oddity on the imagery could mean. There are also a lot of limitations to using such low resolution satellite imagery, and a lot of the time you will simply be forced to ignore certain oddities shown just because there is no conclusive evidence. One of the strongest and most important things an analyst can say is "I don't know". I understand that due to the increased centralisation of the Russian and Ukrainian information spaces, there is a desperate need for additional sources to keep maps up to date, but I sincerely ask those trying to use satellite imagery to actually learn how it works and what each oddity means, BEFORE using it for their mapping. I've lost count of the number of times people mix up Ukrainian artillery shelling craters with Russian KAB glide-bomb craters; grass fires caused by summer heat or individual drone strikes with large MLRS suppressive fire; and trees losing their leaves or changing colour due to changing seasons, with artillery shelling. Your lack of experience is resulting in a massive new wave of misinformation, that influences what is being spread in the information space, resulting in complete hallucinations of counteroffensives or advances. I estimate that up to 50% of the false posts made by accounts that copy-paste reports from others can be traced back to mappers "misusing" satellite imagery. You are responsible for the information you put out, and a lack of prior knowledge is not an excuse for spreading misinformation.

New geolocated footage showing a series of Russian FPV drone strikes on a Ukrainian self-propelled artillery system southwest of Lyman indicates that, as a result of the counteroffensive, Ukraine has managed to bring some artillery pieces across the Siverskyi-Donets River. This location (48.97106, 37.75538) was previously directly on the frontline and within Russia's infiltration zone, but is now around 12 km from the frontline (and 14 km from the nearest Russian-controlled territory) due to the recent Ukrainian advances.

For the first time ever yesterday, the city of Druzhkivka was mentioned in the daily Ukrainian General Staff report as an area where Russian forces conducted assault operations.

IRGC has finally hired some Gen Z video editors.

Forward Ukrainian assault groups and DRGs are now less than 7 km from the outskirts of Velyka Novosilka. Prior to these counterattacks, the frontline was over 21 km from the town.

Sorry guys, been super busy. I'll try to be back to posting tomorrow. Hopefully I haven't missed much.

Ukrainian long-range drones are currently attacking the Ukhtinsky Oil Refinery in the Komi Republic. Multiple impacts have been recorded.