DeepStateMap.Live
DeepStateMap.Live is an open-source intelligence interactive online map of the military operations of the Russian and Ukrainian armies during the Russo-Ukrainian war. The map was created on 24 February 2022, the day of the invasion, by the non-governmental and volunteer-led organization Deep State UA. It is updated regularly to reflect the current situation on the frontline, in military formations, and other major events of the war.
Before the Russo-Ukrainian war, Deep State UA originally focused on posting content related to global news and politics on the messaging app Telegram, where they created their first updating online map of a global conflict during the Taliban offensive in 2021. After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, DeepStateMap.Live separated itself from similar digital maps of the invasion after moving away from using a generic Google Maps background after a dispute with Google, allowing Deep State UA to design their own background and interactive map features. The map is currently sourced using data collected by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, as well as a blend of visual information and confirmations by other Ukrainian sources deemed reliable.
The map and other military analysis collected or made by Deep State UA has been cited by Ukrainian and international media outlets such as the BBC and Ukrainska Pravda. By February 2024, the map has been viewed more than one billion times, and has become the most popular digital map of the Russo-Ukrainian war in Ukraine, and one of the most popular digital maps of Ukraine globally, receiving an average of 900,000 views daily in August 2025.
History
Deep State UA
The team which maintains the map today, Deep State UA, was created as a non-governmental organization in February 2020 by childhood friends Roman Pohorily, who was working on a law degree, and Ruslan Mykula, who was working in marketing. At this time, the organization focused on posting content on the messaging app software Telegram. This content often related to global news and politics, including events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Syrian civil war, George Floyd protests, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, and the 2021 Taliban offensive. It was during the 2021 Taliban offensive that the organization first experimented in map making; creating a digital map with a frontline that could be updated as the conflict unfolded. Map admin Mykula later recalled asking in an interview with the Ukrainian public broadcast Suspilne, "why not show the same thing in Ukraine?"In the prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, especially during the fall of 2021, the organization gradually shifted their focus towards entirely Ukrainian-specific news and analysis; reporting on hostilities and tracking the transfer of Russian military equipment and personnel to the Russia–Ukraine border. The Telegram channel, which only had around 200 subscribers before, began to see growth from the change in focus. A few hours before the beginning of the invasion, Deep State UA's Telegram channel exceeded 10,000 subscribers for the first time. The Deep State UA Telegram channel saw another large uptick popularity for their coverage and analysis during the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The organization and its community at this time helped to refute large claims made early in the war by both sides; including the false sinking of the Russian frigate Admiral Makarov, and the destruction of all of Ukraine's Bayraktar TB2s.
Map history
The online map of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was created the day Russia started their invasion on 24 February 2022. It was first developed using Google Maps as the backdrop because of the simplicity in drawing lines and sharing with others that came with the service. By the end of March however, Google blocked Deep State UA's use of their map for "violations of their rules of service", effectively shutting the website down. While the exact violation committed was not clearly explained, Google appeared to have issued the block as they did not want to host a website which could be a legal liability, especially after complaints from viewers to Google which stemmed from the map not always being updated with the most current information, and several prior digital attacks by hackers in Russia. After attempts over the following week to restore Google Maps on the website proved to be unsuccessful; Deep State UA, along with a programmer who had recently joined, launched their own map on 27 March, which they called "DeepStateMAP", which is what is currently in use. While the map became open to the public again on 26 April in an early state, the change resulted in the loss of all information from before 3 April.After the change, the map greatly benefited from its new unique look from Google Maps and better functionality, making it more popular in Ukraine; so that by June 2022, it had become the 23rd most visited website in the country. The increase in server costs and drop in security that came with moving away from Google and running an independent map eventually lead to a major DDOS attack on 10 August 2022 against the map by hackers from Russia and various nations ideologically aligned with them, including China, Iran, Brazil, and North Korea. The map "suffered almost no ," according to the Deep State UA team, and returned to normal functionality quickly. The map's popularity increased and reach its peak viewership of 120,000 visitors in 30 minutes during the recapture of Izium and Lyman by Ukrainian forces, with 7.9 million visitors being recorded by the end of the day, up from the approximately three million views the map normally received each day according to its authors. By October 2022, the map had been viewed more than 200 million times, making it the most popular digital map of the Russo-Ukrainian war in Ukraine, and one of the most popular digital maps of Ukraine globally.
Today, the Deep State UA team is headed by the founders Pohorilyi and Mykula, and is made up of approximately 100 paid employees and volunteers who work on their own time from home and communicate through Telegram, as the organization has no offices. While the two main outlets of information used by Deep State UA are their map and Telegram, they also report on YouTube and Twitter, but have a smaller following here because of the less amount of time they've been on the platforms. Since gaining popularity, the organization itself is funded in part by the Ukrainian government, but mainly from public donations, according to Mykula. Since 8 March 2022, the organization has raised viewer-gathered funds to help support Ukraine and its armed forces. It had gathered a total of over 3 million hryvnias in donations by 22 April 2023. On 19 February 2024, another major DDOS attack took place against the map, but was able to be resolved within 18 minutes of starting. On 22 February 2024, the Deep State UA announced the map had reached one billion views since its launch, and in March 2024 that their Telegram channel had reached over 700,000 subscribers. In August 2025, it was reported the map receives around 900,000 views daily.
Map characteristics
, the map is available to readers in English and Ukrainian, and uses red to mark the areas currently controlled by Russian forces, blue to mark the areas regained by Ukrainian forces less than two weeks previously or during the Kursk incursion, green to mark the areas regained by Ukrainian forces more than two weeks previously, pink to mark the areas that have been controlled by Russian forces since before the war began, gray to mark the areas with unknown status, and light red to mark areas outside of Ukraine which currently are under an occupation by Russia of other countries which could be considered controversial; such as for Transnistria, Karelia, Chechnya, Kaliningrad Oblast, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, parts of Pskov and Leningrad Oblasts which were considered as occupied Estonian and Latvian territories, and the Kuril Islands. When hovering over green regained areas; information from official sources, such as the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, about the area's recapture is also sometimes displayed. Areas depicted as being regained by Ukrainian forces are only displayed if Russian forces stayed in the area for an extended period of time, and were not just passing through. Earlier versions of the map displayed dark red areas as black areas, but has since been re-colored.Interactive features of the map include the ability to toggle icons representing the location of known Russian and Belarusian units and naval fleets, alongside distinguishing arrows displaying their direction of attack. Icons to display Russian headquarters, airfields, major railroads under their control, and Russian-made trenches and fortifications in and outside Ukraine can also be displayed. Buttons located on the left side of the screen also display various information when pressed, including a statistics chart of Russian losses, a map layer of the weather in and around Ukraine, background radiation across Ukraine, the range of nuclear weapons, the range of various forms of weapons, and the locations of mystery fires in Russia and Ukraine within the last 48 hours. The feature to view the range of weapon systems in particular has been used by mayor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast town Mezhova, Volodymyr Zrazhevsky, to gauge the threat of Russian strikes. Formerly, there was also a "pathogen mode" which displayed a blurred image of the current Russian troop concentrations in and around Ukraine.
On 2 July 2024, a major update to the map was launched nicknamed "DeepStateMap 2.0", which included a graphics update, added an offline mode, ability to toggle animations to reduce loading times, ability to draw on the map, ability to use keyboard shortcuts on computers, new weapons to view the range of, and the ability to copy coordinates by clicking on the center of the map.