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Ukraine Conflict Live Map

469 points by journey_16162 5y ago

InfiniteRand 5y ago
I think in a lot of ways this is a continuation of the Poland-Russia rivalry to be the savior of the Slavs. This rivalry has been a major factor in Ukraine’s history, for instance the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth absorbed a large Western chunk of Kievian Rus during its disintegration at the same time Moscow consolidated much of the Eastern Rus principalities. It may simplistic to say this is the reason Ukraine and Belarus have separate histories but this was at least a major factor.
- orloffm 5y ago
  They have different histories because of the swamps that were only eradicated in 20th century. Try to find autmobile maps in 1930s - there are virtually no roads along the current border of Belarus/Ukraine.
silexia 5y ago
My big picture opinion on the Ukraine Conflict: Dictators Putin and Jinping are ramping up invasions of Ukraine and Taiwan to capture new territory as free nations have done nothing to support their previous subjugation of Crimea and Hong Kong. Adolf Hitler in the 1930's used a similar strategy of gradually conquering more and more territory while free nations twiddled their thumbs. Hopefully, a leader like Winston Churchill will rise again to fight for freedom.
rythmshifter03 5y ago
This has now gone offline for no apparent reason.
- dncornholio 5y ago
  It's even behind cloudflare
  - marapuru 5y ago
    I was able to open it a few minutes ago and now it's down again. Giving a 500 error.
    - D00MSLAYER 5y ago
      The mobile app version is far more reliable than the website, give that a try
    - D00MSLAYER 5y ago
      nevermind the app just went down
    - Fyhachu 5y ago
      520 error : If the visitors to your website see error 520 in your browser, it means that Cloudflare is sending the message because your server returned an empty, unknown or unexpected response.
xjlin0 5y ago
It's 500 now, let's hope everything will be back to normal soon.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mdb31 5y ago
So, yes, political, but on the other hand a cool piece of tech? I've not seen this kind of visualization of a developing situation publicly available before, and a cursory glance shows that the data sources are at least one level beyond 'naked propaganda'... Bookmarked!
- m0llusk 5y ago
  Live maps like this of ethnic conflicts in Kenya made a huge difference with the civil unrest there. This conflict is very different, but being able to present evidence of what is happening could have a great influence not just on the conflict itself but all that comes afterward.
  - mdb31 5y ago
    Oh, this definitely seems very useful. But, the immediate reflex on HN is to downvote such tools into oblivion. When I 'vouched' for this submission, it was flagged, I assume for immediate deletion. It's quite interesting that 'free speech' advocates are so, eh, limited in what they actually consider to be such...
    - irthomasthomas 5y ago
      Yeah, I think this is the first Ukraine story that has survived more than 30 minutes on the front page, so, well done!
      - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        I think that the data part has probably helped to avoid the flamewars (for some reason).
        tekknik 5y ago
        What are you 3 actually on about? Something about free speech and tools? Care to explain for those who have no idea what’s going on here?
dainiusse 5y ago
Very good map - god bless Ukraine.
axiosgunnar 5y ago
- femiagbabiaka 5y ago
- wffurr 5y ago
  I'm not even sure who you're replying to. Looking at the other comments plus the front-page ranking, seems as if there's plenty of interest in this map on HN.
Hard_Space 5y ago
A nice idea, but not crazy about the mushroom cloud icon.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > not crazy about the mushroom cloud icon Ironic, given Ukraine wouldn’t be in this situation had it not given up its nuclear weapons on the back of promises—from the U.K., U.S. and Russia—that its territory would be respected [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
  - kwantam 5y ago
    In what sense were they Ukraine's nuclear weapons? They were physically inside Ukraine but controlled by Russia, as the article you linked makes clear.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      They were the Soviet Union's nukes. That organization ceased to exist. The section of the Soviet military controlling those nukes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43rd_Rocket_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43rd_Rocket_Army) became a part of the Ukranian military. Why wouldn't their equipment?
      - trenchgun 5y ago
        Ukraine never had the control of those nukes. “Until then, Ukraine had the world's third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile, of which Ukraine had physical, but not operational, control. Russia alone controlled the codes needed to operate. Their use was dependent on Russian-controlled electronic Permissive Action Links and the Russian command and control system” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
        5y ago
antocv 5y ago
Does anyone remember when Gitlab forbade employees from Russia? How did that go, whats the current status now that issue?
- tokai 5y ago
  Most of those sanctions got lifted by Trump right?
  - golergka 5y ago
    Wrong. On the contrary, Trump administration imposed additional sanctions that prevented Nord Stream 2 from being complete — which Biden administration have reversed. Western media portrayed Trump as "pro-Putin", but if you look at the actual decisions by administrations, he was the one who really pushed back against Putin, compared both to Obama and Biden.
    - nate_meurer 5y ago
      No, Trump was absolutely "pro-putin", and sanctions were imposed in spite of his protests. The administration could not help but be staffed by competent Russia hawks, since those same folks were needed to push Trump's desired agenda on Iran, but with regard to "being tough on Russia", Trump himself often had to be dragged kicking and screaming. https://www.wichitaliberty.org/united-states-government/trump-and-russia-sanctions/ https://www.wichitaliberty.org/united-states-government/trum... EDIT: I should point out that the Trump administration's small and ineffective sanctions aimed at Nord Stream 2 are the exception that proves the rule. Nord Stream 2 brought together a unique set of issues that inspired Trump: hatred of Germany and Merkel, hatred of NATO, and his religious love of fossil fuels, manfiested in fear that Nord Stream 2 would wipe out his dream of shipping natural gas to Europe on tanker ships. But the stubborn reality is that Nord Stream 2 was built on Trump's watch, and in the end his sanctions did exactly nothing. They threatened only a tiny fraction of the uncompleted prohect-- a couple hundred kilometers-- which were simply completed anyway by a Russian company instead of a Swiss one.
      - 5y ago
_xnmw 5y ago
I'm in Ukraine right now, where I've been living for the past few years (Canadian Citizen born and raised in Toronto). This is completely overblown nonsense. This "live map" makes it seem like there is some kind of war starting. There's nothing of the sort. War started 8 years ago, and this move by Putin last night actually ENDS the war decisively. The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been in constant conflict for 8 years. There's nothing new here on this map. Putin's decision yesterday to make it officially Russian-protected instead of shadow-backed actually de-escalates tensions and finally ends the 8-year long conflict. Now that Donetsk and Luhansk are officially Russian-backed, the Ukrainian army will no longer attempt to keep recapturing it (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted.
- darkarmani 5y ago
  > (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted. Oops. Your comment aged really poorly in one day. It turns out Russia wanted all of Ukraine and you are fighting them head-on.
- swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
  Unconvincing. Why would Putin stop now?
  - _xnmw 5y ago
    Why would Putin want to annex a country full of people who hate him? Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea had 70%+ ethnic Russians with pro-Russia sentiment. Everywhere else in Ukraine he is hated, there's no way he will want to expand into territory that jeopardizes his own stability.
    - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
      Why wouldn't he?
mrenum 5y ago
This makes me wounder how far we are from having real time high resolution satellite coverage of events like this. Some of the events reported in liveuamap are already based on high res sat images to identity military camps and troop movement.
- mrenum 5y ago
  If anyone is interested, seems like SentinelHub offers a tool called EO Browser that is able to explore multiple high resolution sat image for free, those images seem to be pretty update.
  - m2fkxy 5y ago
    Most of SentinelHub's open access data comes from Sentinel-1 (radar) and 2 (optical) satellites constellations, which offer a 6-days or shorter revisit time over nearly any point on Earth (for S-1, this is currently longer, as one of the two S-1 sats making up the constellation is out of order). This is not quite high resolution data however - in the 10 to 20 meters per pixel range, i.e. medium resolution. Sentinels are not reconnaissance satellites, but are rather tasked for mapping and collecting large amounts of data globally, for which the main use cases do not necessarily need high resolution imagery (agricultural monitoring, deforestation, natural catastrophes...). Reconnaissance satellites have much finer ground resolution (sub-meter per pixel, down to a couple dozen centimeters... from what is publicly available), and some constellations feature daily revisit cycles.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      >as one of the two S-1 sats making up the constellation is out of order I'm having a really hard time calling 2 dots in the sky a constellation. Does 1+ satellites equate to a constellation in satellite owner/operator parlance?
      - arwineap 5y ago
        A fleet is simply more than one ship traveling together, so it seems to translate fine
mikecoles 5y ago
Buffalo, NY, US made the map. Has anyone seen the inner workings of the site? Is it pulling keywords from feeds and then geolocating the incident? https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/22-february-22222buffalo-fd-working-fire-at-67-ruspin-avenue https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/22-february-22222buffalo-fd-wo...
- capableweb 5y ago
  It's all manually sourced and manually geolocated.
ed_balls 5y ago
Hn hug of death. Does anyone have a mirror?
Scarblac 5y ago
This live map started 8 years ago and has been updating all the time since, showing all daily incidents that never stopped happening. It also followed ISIS wars in Iraq and Syria and so on.
- journey_16162 5y ago
  Yes, I found it on HN search, it was submitted in 2014. I was surprised that the exact url still works and shows recent data.
vmception 5y ago
I finally read up on these regions, and know that I'm not done given that all sources are questionable and no consensus has been reached. But I do understand that Donetsk and Luhansk both have petitioned for more autonomy in an amended Ukranian constitution (that would give all administrative-districts more autonomy). This has failed but apparently Ukraine is in the process of becoming more decentralized with their own constitutional amendments, pursuing a concept of Federalism/Confederacy similar to Switzerland, which Donetsk and Luhansk would benefit from but that idea of satisfying those districts has long passed, now that they handle their own affairs and also receive Russian passports now. So because the desired constitution has failed, when that chance for diplomacy was available, and they already receive Russian passports, what exactly is the goal here? Are they supposed to be on the map as their own countries? Are there two new countries on the map? Is there an accession to Russia? I get Putin's words look more like a piecemeal approach of chopping territory back from Ukraine, until it and all former soviet states are simply Russian states. But I think most of that is just grandstanding to sound cool to his own people. I also think any opportunity of affinity towards Russia will be seized upon, especially when there is a direct border. I'm purposely avoiding the discrimination against Ukrainian-speaking people and actions against dissidents, given the area is reported as being lawless for some time now. And focusing on the geopolitical element. So with that in mind, what does recognition as independent even mean? They get Russian passports and citizenship and freedom of movement and work in Russia already. Are they simply saying that civil and criminal justice can't be appealed to either Ukraine or Russian higher courts? Going to go with the autonomous region concept until a future referendum of accession into Russia? I can't get an answer from my Ukrainian friends either, "its just hybrid war, American news making it bigger than it is, Biden making misinformation". I watched Putin's speech, but okay, maybe my translation was wrong, seems like denial to say Biden is just making a big deal though, but I guess I too wouldn't care about a border region full of people that aren't interested in my country's values. This last point seems to be what another comment from someone transplanted to Ukraine is saying.
- yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
  > Are there two new countries on the map? It depends who's map you're looking at. > I'm purposely avoiding the discrimination against Ukrainian-speaking people Bear in mind that it's not as simple as discriminating between those who speak Ukrainian and those who speak Russian. A significant proportion of the Ukrainian population speak Russian primarily, but otherwise have no political affinity for Russia. > Going to go with the autonomous region concept until a future referendum of accession into Russia? This is most likely it, though it could further escalate into an even more egregious invasion, which would trigger a military response from Ukraine, which would then give Russia the casus belli they are looking for.
csee 5y ago
Putin just recognized the full Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, 2/3 of which is currently controlled by Ukraining troops. Hard to see how this doesn't escalate into a full on war now?
- journey_16162 5y ago
  Their best bet is probably to give them up, in hopes Russia will not invade the entire country.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Russia invaded those two regions - why not take the rest?
    - journey_16162 5y ago
      We don't know that - and sadly, it's not that unlikely. But if they don't retreat from those regions while it's still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade entire Ukraine. They don't have a lot to lose by retreating and potentially everything to win if Russia backs off. There's not a chance anyway they would be able to take those regions back.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > If they don't retreat from those regions while it's still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade entire Ukraine. According to Ukraine, Russia invented the pretexts it has already cited for the “need” to intervene in those two regions, so from Ukraine's perspective, avoiding given Russia a “genuine” (given Russia’s nakedly illegal claims) pretext has zero marginal cost, since the absence of a “genuine” (even given Russia’s preexisting propaganda position) pretext has no evident impact on Russia’s willingness to act. Given that, Ukraine has little rational reason to consider providing a pretext under Russia’s propaganda framework to be a significant factor.
      - vorpalhex 5y ago
can16358p 5y ago
I think the server is down, can't access, what did it look like when it was up? (Edit: okay it's definitely up. It was my extremely democratic country blocking the access. Accessed throung VPN now)
forinti 5y ago
Transnistria shouldn't be marked as it is a disputed part of Moldova, not of Ukraine.
- int_19h 5y ago
  It's marked because, as a de facto Russian-controlled territory, it is likely to be used as a bridgehead if Russia decides to occupy the entirety of Ukraine.
chippy 5y ago
Couple of other maps: NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukraine-maps.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukrain... Centre For Information Resilience: https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor from: https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-russian-invasion-in-real-time.html https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-russian-inv...
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Centre For Information Resilience: https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor This one seems much better than the original link. Probably the best "live" map I've seen so far.
  - thrownope671 5y ago
    Benjamin Strick of the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) team details the map and how it can be used: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/02/27/follow-the-russia-ukraine-monitor-map/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/02/27/follow-the-russia...
  - l5ymep 5y ago
    Impressive how responsive this map is.
wazoox 5y ago
Putin is currently playing out the same game as he did in 2008 in Georgia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia aren't formerly part of Russia; their existence merely guarantee that Georgia cannot be part of NATO. That's the plan: preventing forever Ukraine from being part of NATO. That's been the constant demand or Russia since Gorbachev, Yeltsin, etc. So the pseudo-republics of Donetsk and Luhansk will remain forever, just for this purpose.
- jmyeet 5y ago
  This is the best comment on this thread. I've actually been surprised how State Department propaganda ("anonymous sources within the State Department / Pentagon / White House") is transmitted unfiltered on the media, particularly after so many incidents of it being wrong (WMDs anyone?). It's also so sad to see how pro-Imperialist the suppposed Left is. Worse is how easily so many seem to accept this narrative. The US promised NATO wouldn't expand east in 1990 and then immediately reneged on it and has done so repeatedly since to the point where NATO is knocking on Russia's door. Russia absolutely does not want Ukraine in NATO. I guess that's the line in the sand. This draws predictable "It's Ukraine's choice" calls but when you provide an analogy like "How would the US feel about China or Russia building military and forward operating bases in Mexico or China along the US border?" it gets dismissed like "that would never happen", which of course doesn't answer the question. Yep, Russian troops have entered Ukraine and that's bad. But it's not a war... yet. And Putin isn't a madman. This is a high-stakes move to keep Ukraine out of NATO and the West really needs to reconsider our position on this because it's not unreasonable. More to the point, is it worth igniting a war over Ukraine? Really?
  - simplyaccont 5y ago
    is there some specific memorandum of understanding or something with promise not to expand NATO east ?
    - croes 5y ago
      It's complicated https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-is-vladimir-putin-right-a-bf318d2c-7aeb-4b59-8d5f-1d8c94e1964d https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-e...
wrnr 5y ago
I wonder what Putin will do next, he might annex Donetsk a third time.
mike_k 5y ago
I wonder, what is the current state of satellite technology available to military? Can they stream near real-time hi-res images that would "prove" that one side or the other is effectively responsible for a certain escalation? An (non-existent) international institution to analyze and take action is the other part of the puzzle.
- aerostable_slug 5y ago
  Imagery satellites fly at a low altitude and effectively cannot "hover" over a site in the same way a drone can. That said, one can correlate the passes of imagery satellites (optical, radar) with other spaceborne RF sensors, and sensors on airplanes & drones (optical, radar, RF etc.), and data from implanted sensors on the ground, to construct a real-time view of the battlespace. The Full Monty of these capabilities, especially data fusion from disparate platforms, would never be released to the world. Fun fact: US overhead systems (NRO satellites) are sometimes quietly used to aid search & rescue activities. A friend of mine, a USAF E-9 who had been read into many compartments during his career, used to do this with the Coast Guard after he retired from the Air Force. Pretty cool stuff.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    The operators of most of those satellites for the US, which I find most people haven't actually heard of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligen... Like you mentioned, they do use their capabilities for some things other than just GEOINT: >In addition to using GEOINT for U.S. military and intelligence efforts, NGA provides assistance during natural and man-made disasters, aids in security planning for major events such as the Olympic Games,[9] disseminates maritime safety information,[10] and gathers data on climate change.[11]
    - m2fkxy 5y ago
      The NRO would be actually the operator. NGA takes care of exploiting the data
dandanua 5y ago
Notice dashed lines on the map. Those are boundaries of regions. Putin claimed "independence" of the whole area of 2 regions. It's MUCH larger than currently controlled red area. It's all the way up to north and also a significant area to west of the red zone.
- throwawayay02 5y ago
  I'm not sure what dashed lines are those. Are they the ones that include Mariupol in the south of Donetsk? Thank you
  - dandanua 5y ago
    Yes, it is a part of Donetsk region. It's a city of around 0.5 mil citizens. And a very strategic location. They wanted to capture it in 2014, but failed.
osynavets 5y ago
Thanks everyone for support If you want somehow to support Ukraine, please join savelife.in.ua patreon, which is a volunteer rehabilitation services done for Ukrainian soldiers Again thanks everyone for everything
- ohwellish 5y ago
  that would be https://www.patreon.com/savelife_in_ua https://www.patreon.com/savelife_in_ua (Ukrainian IT community already raised around $100k in a last few days)
  - 3pt14159 5y ago
    How do I know that this money is going to where they say it is going? I'm happy to support it at the top level, I just want to make sure I'm not accidentally funnelling money into Russia's disinformation campaign.
    - milkymoo 5y ago
      Same. Not knowing anyone in Ukraine to validate, I am unsure.
    - capableweb 5y ago
      Indeed, some external validation would be great, from Patreon or any other organization. The membership levels are also.. Disturbing? If I select "Projectile" membership (with a picture of a grenade missile or something) it says "You started saving lives!". All memberships are munition for weapons ("Bullet", "Projectile", "Bomb" and "Missile"), not exactly something you associate with "Saving lives". Seems to be run by Come Back Alive Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Back_Alive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Back_Alive) but I can't actually verify that they link to the Patreon from their website (https://savelife.in.ua https://savelife.in.ua) as it seems to be offline right now. Not to say it's sketchy to use Patreon for something of that importance, since Patreon has a reputation of pulling funding for organizations by now.
      - 5y ago
tomtomistaken 5y ago
We made a map where you can add Tweets by tweeting its URL. It’s far from done and has a lot of bugs, but it’s still a nice proof of concept. https://decarbnow.space/ https://decarbnow.space/
shrubble 5y ago
Does anyone know which areas of Ukraine have the large proven reserves of Lithium, the element needed for EV battery production? I know that the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have or are near to large coal deposits.
- ohwellish 5y ago
  update: better link with a map, Lithium are those light green circles https://i.imgur.com/6JU7YS5.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/6JU7YS5.jpeg
egberts1 5y ago
Every pins that I have touched on the map pops up it’s balloon that says the same thing “84 ceasefire violations, 2 servicemen killed.” mmmmm
- slater 5y ago
  Looks like that's a compilation of many smaller skirmishes that happened most recently
divbzero 5y ago
Would awareness and publicizing information like this discourage war? It would definitely create more public disgust but I am not sure how much that translates to pressure on political leaders.
adultSwim 5y ago
Some of the most compelling data work is coming out of US funding and interests. For instance the working relationship between Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council. We know in the past, the CIA has worked through traditional international and national media sources. I'm curious what they are up to in the era of data journalism.

469 points by journey_16162 5y ago

I think in a lot of ways this is a continuation of the Poland-Russia rivalry to be the savior of the Slavs. This rivalry has been a major factor in Ukraine’s history, for instance the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth absorbed a large Western chunk of Kievian Rus during its disintegration at the same time Moscow consolidated much of the Eastern Rus principalities. It may simplistic to say this is the reason Ukraine and Belarus have separate histories but this was at least a major factor.

orloffm 5y ago
They have different histories because of the swamps that were only eradicated in 20th century. Try to find autmobile maps in 1930s - there are virtually no roads along the current border of Belarus/Ukraine.

silexia 5y ago

My big picture opinion on the Ukraine Conflict: Dictators Putin and Jinping are ramping up invasions of Ukraine and Taiwan to capture new territory as free nations have done nothing to support their previous subjugation of Crimea and Hong Kong. Adolf Hitler in the 1930's used a similar strategy of gradually conquering more and more territory while free nations twiddled their thumbs. Hopefully, a leader like Winston Churchill will rise again to fight for freedom.

rythmshifter03 5y ago

This has now gone offline for no apparent reason.

dncornholio 5y ago
It's even behind cloudflare
- marapuru 5y ago
  I was able to open it a few minutes ago and now it's down again. Giving a 500 error.
  - D00MSLAYER 5y ago
    The mobile app version is far more reliable than the website, give that a try
  - D00MSLAYER 5y ago
    nevermind the app just went down
  - Fyhachu 5y ago
    520 error : If the visitors to your website see error 520 in your browser, it means that Cloudflare is sending the message because your server returned an empty, unknown or unexpected response.

xjlin0 5y ago

It's 500 now, let's hope everything will be back to normal soon.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mdb31 5y ago

So, yes, political, but on the other hand a cool piece of tech? I've not seen this kind of visualization of a developing situation publicly available before, and a cursory glance shows that the data sources are at least one level beyond 'naked propaganda'... Bookmarked!

m0llusk 5y ago
Live maps like this of ethnic conflicts in Kenya made a huge difference with the civil unrest there. This conflict is very different, but being able to present evidence of what is happening could have a great influence not just on the conflict itself but all that comes afterward.
- mdb31 5y ago
  Oh, this definitely seems very useful. But, the immediate reflex on HN is to downvote such tools into oblivion. When I 'vouched' for this submission, it was flagged, I assume for immediate deletion. It's quite interesting that 'free speech' advocates are so, eh, limited in what they actually consider to be such...
  - irthomasthomas 5y ago
    Yeah, I think this is the first Ukraine story that has survived more than 30 minutes on the front page, so, well done!
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      I think that the data part has probably helped to avoid the flamewars (for some reason).
      - tekknik 5y ago
        What are you 3 actually on about? Something about free speech and tools? Care to explain for those who have no idea what’s going on here?

dainiusse 5y ago

Very good map - god bless Ukraine.

axiosgunnar 5y ago

femiagbabiaka 5y ago
wffurr 5y ago
I'm not even sure who you're replying to. Looking at the other comments plus the front-page ranking, seems as if there's plenty of interest in this map on HN.

Hard_Space 5y ago

A nice idea, but not crazy about the mushroom cloud icon.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> not crazy about the mushroom cloud icon Ironic, given Ukraine wouldn’t be in this situation had it not given up its nuclear weapons on the back of promises—from the U.K., U.S. and Russia—that its territory would be respected [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
- kwantam 5y ago
  In what sense were they Ukraine's nuclear weapons? They were physically inside Ukraine but controlled by Russia, as the article you linked makes clear.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    They were the Soviet Union's nukes. That organization ceased to exist. The section of the Soviet military controlling those nukes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43rd_Rocket_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43rd_Rocket_Army) became a part of the Ukranian military. Why wouldn't their equipment?
    - trenchgun 5y ago
      Ukraine never had the control of those nukes. “Until then, Ukraine had the world's third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile, of which Ukraine had physical, but not operational, control. Russia alone controlled the codes needed to operate. Their use was dependent on Russian-controlled electronic Permissive Action Links and the Russian command and control system” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
      - 5y ago

antocv 5y ago

Does anyone remember when Gitlab forbade employees from Russia? How did that go, whats the current status now that issue?

tokai 5y ago
Most of those sanctions got lifted by Trump right?
- golergka 5y ago
  Wrong. On the contrary, Trump administration imposed additional sanctions that prevented Nord Stream 2 from being complete — which Biden administration have reversed. Western media portrayed Trump as "pro-Putin", but if you look at the actual decisions by administrations, he was the one who really pushed back against Putin, compared both to Obama and Biden.
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    No, Trump was absolutely "pro-putin", and sanctions were imposed in spite of his protests. The administration could not help but be staffed by competent Russia hawks, since those same folks were needed to push Trump's desired agenda on Iran, but with regard to "being tough on Russia", Trump himself often had to be dragged kicking and screaming. https://www.wichitaliberty.org/united-states-government/trump-and-russia-sanctions/ https://www.wichitaliberty.org/united-states-government/trum... EDIT: I should point out that the Trump administration's small and ineffective sanctions aimed at Nord Stream 2 are the exception that proves the rule. Nord Stream 2 brought together a unique set of issues that inspired Trump: hatred of Germany and Merkel, hatred of NATO, and his religious love of fossil fuels, manfiested in fear that Nord Stream 2 would wipe out his dream of shipping natural gas to Europe on tanker ships. But the stubborn reality is that Nord Stream 2 was built on Trump's watch, and in the end his sanctions did exactly nothing. They threatened only a tiny fraction of the uncompleted prohect-- a couple hundred kilometers-- which were simply completed anyway by a Russian company instead of a Swiss one.
    - 5y ago

_xnmw 5y ago

I'm in Ukraine right now, where I've been living for the past few years (Canadian Citizen born and raised in Toronto). This is completely overblown nonsense. This "live map" makes it seem like there is some kind of war starting. There's nothing of the sort. War started 8 years ago, and this move by Putin last night actually ENDS the war decisively. The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been in constant conflict for 8 years. There's nothing new here on this map. Putin's decision yesterday to make it officially Russian-protected instead of shadow-backed actually de-escalates tensions and finally ends the 8-year long conflict. Now that Donetsk and Luhansk are officially Russian-backed, the Ukrainian army will no longer attempt to keep recapturing it (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted.

darkarmani 5y ago
> (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted. Oops. Your comment aged really poorly in one day. It turns out Russia wanted all of Ukraine and you are fighting them head-on.
swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
Unconvincing. Why would Putin stop now?
- _xnmw 5y ago
  Why would Putin want to annex a country full of people who hate him? Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea had 70%+ ethnic Russians with pro-Russia sentiment. Everywhere else in Ukraine he is hated, there's no way he will want to expand into territory that jeopardizes his own stability.
  - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
    Why wouldn't he?

mrenum 5y ago

This makes me wounder how far we are from having real time high resolution satellite coverage of events like this. Some of the events reported in liveuamap are already based on high res sat images to identity military camps and troop movement.

mrenum 5y ago
If anyone is interested, seems like SentinelHub offers a tool called EO Browser that is able to explore multiple high resolution sat image for free, those images seem to be pretty update.
- m2fkxy 5y ago
  Most of SentinelHub's open access data comes from Sentinel-1 (radar) and 2 (optical) satellites constellations, which offer a 6-days or shorter revisit time over nearly any point on Earth (for S-1, this is currently longer, as one of the two S-1 sats making up the constellation is out of order). This is not quite high resolution data however - in the 10 to 20 meters per pixel range, i.e. medium resolution. Sentinels are not reconnaissance satellites, but are rather tasked for mapping and collecting large amounts of data globally, for which the main use cases do not necessarily need high resolution imagery (agricultural monitoring, deforestation, natural catastrophes...). Reconnaissance satellites have much finer ground resolution (sub-meter per pixel, down to a couple dozen centimeters... from what is publicly available), and some constellations feature daily revisit cycles.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    >as one of the two S-1 sats making up the constellation is out of order I'm having a really hard time calling 2 dots in the sky a constellation. Does 1+ satellites equate to a constellation in satellite owner/operator parlance?
    - arwineap 5y ago
      A fleet is simply more than one ship traveling together, so it seems to translate fine

mikecoles 5y ago

Buffalo, NY, US made the map. Has anyone seen the inner workings of the site? Is it pulling keywords from feeds and then geolocating the incident? https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/22-february-22222buffalo-fd-working-fire-at-67-ruspin-avenue https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/22-february-22222buffalo-fd-wo...

capableweb 5y ago
It's all manually sourced and manually geolocated.

ed_balls 5y ago

Hn hug of death. Does anyone have a mirror?

Scarblac 5y ago

This live map started 8 years ago and has been updating all the time since, showing all daily incidents that never stopped happening. It also followed ISIS wars in Iraq and Syria and so on.

journey_16162 5y ago
Yes, I found it on HN search, it was submitted in 2014. I was surprised that the exact url still works and shows recent data.

vmception 5y ago

I finally read up on these regions, and know that I'm not done given that all sources are questionable and no consensus has been reached. But I do understand that Donetsk and Luhansk both have petitioned for more autonomy in an amended Ukranian constitution (that would give all administrative-districts more autonomy). This has failed but apparently Ukraine is in the process of becoming more decentralized with their own constitutional amendments, pursuing a concept of Federalism/Confederacy similar to Switzerland, which Donetsk and Luhansk would benefit from but that idea of satisfying those districts has long passed, now that they handle their own affairs and also receive Russian passports now. So because the desired constitution has failed, when that chance for diplomacy was available, and they already receive Russian passports, what exactly is the goal here? Are they supposed to be on the map as their own countries? Are there two new countries on the map? Is there an accession to Russia? I get Putin's words look more like a piecemeal approach of chopping territory back from Ukraine, until it and all former soviet states are simply Russian states. But I think most of that is just grandstanding to sound cool to his own people. I also think any opportunity of affinity towards Russia will be seized upon, especially when there is a direct border. I'm purposely avoiding the discrimination against Ukrainian-speaking people and actions against dissidents, given the area is reported as being lawless for some time now. And focusing on the geopolitical element. So with that in mind, what does recognition as independent even mean? They get Russian passports and citizenship and freedom of movement and work in Russia already. Are they simply saying that civil and criminal justice can't be appealed to either Ukraine or Russian higher courts? Going to go with the autonomous region concept until a future referendum of accession into Russia? I can't get an answer from my Ukrainian friends either, "its just hybrid war, American news making it bigger than it is, Biden making misinformation". I watched Putin's speech, but okay, maybe my translation was wrong, seems like denial to say Biden is just making a big deal though, but I guess I too wouldn't care about a border region full of people that aren't interested in my country's values. This last point seems to be what another comment from someone transplanted to Ukraine is saying.

yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
> Are there two new countries on the map? It depends who's map you're looking at. > I'm purposely avoiding the discrimination against Ukrainian-speaking people Bear in mind that it's not as simple as discriminating between those who speak Ukrainian and those who speak Russian. A significant proportion of the Ukrainian population speak Russian primarily, but otherwise have no political affinity for Russia. > Going to go with the autonomous region concept until a future referendum of accession into Russia? This is most likely it, though it could further escalate into an even more egregious invasion, which would trigger a military response from Ukraine, which would then give Russia the casus belli they are looking for.

csee 5y ago

Putin just recognized the full Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, 2/3 of which is currently controlled by Ukraining troops. Hard to see how this doesn't escalate into a full on war now?

journey_16162 5y ago
Their best bet is probably to give them up, in hopes Russia will not invade the entire country.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Russia invaded those two regions - why not take the rest?
  - journey_16162 5y ago
    We don't know that - and sadly, it's not that unlikely. But if they don't retreat from those regions while it's still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade entire Ukraine. They don't have a lot to lose by retreating and potentially everything to win if Russia backs off. There's not a chance anyway they would be able to take those regions back.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > If they don't retreat from those regions while it's still an unknown, it will just give Russia pretext to invade entire Ukraine. According to Ukraine, Russia invented the pretexts it has already cited for the “need” to intervene in those two regions, so from Ukraine's perspective, avoiding given Russia a “genuine” (given Russia’s nakedly illegal claims) pretext has zero marginal cost, since the absence of a “genuine” (even given Russia’s preexisting propaganda position) pretext has no evident impact on Russia’s willingness to act. Given that, Ukraine has little rational reason to consider providing a pretext under Russia’s propaganda framework to be a significant factor.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago

can16358p 5y ago

I think the server is down, can't access, what did it look like when it was up? (Edit: okay it's definitely up. It was my extremely democratic country blocking the access. Accessed throung VPN now)

forinti 5y ago

Transnistria shouldn't be marked as it is a disputed part of Moldova, not of Ukraine.

int_19h 5y ago
It's marked because, as a de facto Russian-controlled territory, it is likely to be used as a bridgehead if Russia decides to occupy the entirety of Ukraine.

chippy 5y ago

Couple of other maps: NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukraine-maps.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukrain... Centre For Information Resilience: https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor from: https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-russian-invasion-in-real-time.html https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-russian-inv...

reaperducer 5y ago
Centre For Information Resilience: https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor https://maphub.net/Cen4infoRes/russian-ukraine-monitor This one seems much better than the original link. Probably the best "live" map I've seen so far.
- thrownope671 5y ago
  Benjamin Strick of the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) team details the map and how it can be used: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/02/27/follow-the-russia-ukraine-monitor-map/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/02/27/follow-the-russia...
- l5ymep 5y ago
  Impressive how responsive this map is.

wazoox 5y ago

Putin is currently playing out the same game as he did in 2008 in Georgia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia aren't formerly part of Russia; their existence merely guarantee that Georgia cannot be part of NATO. That's the plan: preventing forever Ukraine from being part of NATO. That's been the constant demand or Russia since Gorbachev, Yeltsin, etc. So the pseudo-republics of Donetsk and Luhansk will remain forever, just for this purpose.

jmyeet 5y ago
This is the best comment on this thread. I've actually been surprised how State Department propaganda ("anonymous sources within the State Department / Pentagon / White House") is transmitted unfiltered on the media, particularly after so many incidents of it being wrong (WMDs anyone?). It's also so sad to see how pro-Imperialist the suppposed Left is. Worse is how easily so many seem to accept this narrative. The US promised NATO wouldn't expand east in 1990 and then immediately reneged on it and has done so repeatedly since to the point where NATO is knocking on Russia's door. Russia absolutely does not want Ukraine in NATO. I guess that's the line in the sand. This draws predictable "It's Ukraine's choice" calls but when you provide an analogy like "How would the US feel about China or Russia building military and forward operating bases in Mexico or China along the US border?" it gets dismissed like "that would never happen", which of course doesn't answer the question. Yep, Russian troops have entered Ukraine and that's bad. But it's not a war... yet. And Putin isn't a madman. This is a high-stakes move to keep Ukraine out of NATO and the West really needs to reconsider our position on this because it's not unreasonable. More to the point, is it worth igniting a war over Ukraine? Really?
- simplyaccont 5y ago
  is there some specific memorandum of understanding or something with promise not to expand NATO east ?
  - croes 5y ago
    It's complicated https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-is-vladimir-putin-right-a-bf318d2c-7aeb-4b59-8d5f-1d8c94e1964d https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-e...

wrnr 5y ago

I wonder what Putin will do next, he might annex Donetsk a third time.

mike_k 5y ago

I wonder, what is the current state of satellite technology available to military? Can they stream near real-time hi-res images that would "prove" that one side or the other is effectively responsible for a certain escalation? An (non-existent) international institution to analyze and take action is the other part of the puzzle.

aerostable_slug 5y ago
Imagery satellites fly at a low altitude and effectively cannot "hover" over a site in the same way a drone can. That said, one can correlate the passes of imagery satellites (optical, radar) with other spaceborne RF sensors, and sensors on airplanes & drones (optical, radar, RF etc.), and data from implanted sensors on the ground, to construct a real-time view of the battlespace. The Full Monty of these capabilities, especially data fusion from disparate platforms, would never be released to the world. Fun fact: US overhead systems (NRO satellites) are sometimes quietly used to aid search & rescue activities. A friend of mine, a USAF E-9 who had been read into many compartments during his career, used to do this with the Coast Guard after he retired from the Air Force. Pretty cool stuff.
- xxpor 5y ago
  The operators of most of those satellites for the US, which I find most people haven't actually heard of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligen... Like you mentioned, they do use their capabilities for some things other than just GEOINT: >In addition to using GEOINT for U.S. military and intelligence efforts, NGA provides assistance during natural and man-made disasters, aids in security planning for major events such as the Olympic Games,[9] disseminates maritime safety information,[10] and gathers data on climate change.[11]
  - m2fkxy 5y ago
    The NRO would be actually the operator. NGA takes care of exploiting the data

dandanua 5y ago

Notice dashed lines on the map. Those are boundaries of regions. Putin claimed "independence" of the whole area of 2 regions. It's MUCH larger than currently controlled red area. It's all the way up to north and also a significant area to west of the red zone.

throwawayay02 5y ago
I'm not sure what dashed lines are those. Are they the ones that include Mariupol in the south of Donetsk? Thank you
- dandanua 5y ago
  Yes, it is a part of Donetsk region. It's a city of around 0.5 mil citizens. And a very strategic location. They wanted to capture it in 2014, but failed.

osynavets 5y ago

Thanks everyone for support If you want somehow to support Ukraine, please join savelife.in.ua patreon, which is a volunteer rehabilitation services done for Ukrainian soldiers Again thanks everyone for everything

ohwellish 5y ago
that would be https://www.patreon.com/savelife_in_ua https://www.patreon.com/savelife_in_ua (Ukrainian IT community already raised around $100k in a last few days)
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  How do I know that this money is going to where they say it is going? I'm happy to support it at the top level, I just want to make sure I'm not accidentally funnelling money into Russia's disinformation campaign.
  - milkymoo 5y ago
    Same. Not knowing anyone in Ukraine to validate, I am unsure.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    Indeed, some external validation would be great, from Patreon or any other organization. The membership levels are also.. Disturbing? If I select "Projectile" membership (with a picture of a grenade missile or something) it says "You started saving lives!". All memberships are munition for weapons ("Bullet", "Projectile", "Bomb" and "Missile"), not exactly something you associate with "Saving lives". Seems to be run by Come Back Alive Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Back_Alive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Back_Alive) but I can't actually verify that they link to the Patreon from their website (https://savelife.in.ua https://savelife.in.ua) as it seems to be offline right now. Not to say it's sketchy to use Patreon for something of that importance, since Patreon has a reputation of pulling funding for organizations by now.
    - 5y ago

tomtomistaken 5y ago

We made a map where you can add Tweets by tweeting its URL. It’s far from done and has a lot of bugs, but it’s still a nice proof of concept. https://decarbnow.space/ https://decarbnow.space/

shrubble 5y ago

Does anyone know which areas of Ukraine have the large proven reserves of Lithium, the element needed for EV battery production? I know that the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have or are near to large coal deposits.

ohwellish 5y ago
update: better link with a map, Lithium are those light green circles https://i.imgur.com/6JU7YS5.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/6JU7YS5.jpeg

egberts1 5y ago

Every pins that I have touched on the map pops up it’s balloon that says the same thing “84 ceasefire violations, 2 servicemen killed.” mmmmm

slater 5y ago
Looks like that's a compilation of many smaller skirmishes that happened most recently

divbzero 5y ago

Would awareness and publicizing information like this discourage war? It would definitely create more public disgust but I am not sure how much that translates to pressure on political leaders.

adultSwim 5y ago

Some of the most compelling data work is coming out of US funding and interests. For instance the working relationship between Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council. We know in the past, the CIA has worked through traditional international and national media sources. I'm curious what they are up to in the era of data journalism.