{ "id": "deepstate-monthly-change", "title": "Big picture: From 2022 war of destruction to war of attrition", "description": "Month-by-month change in Russian-controlled area since Feb 2022. In 2022, tens of thousands of square kilometers were captured and liberated. Between January 2023 and June 2026, Russia has gained around 8200 km²", "unit": "square kilometres (km²)", "date_range": "Feb 2022 — present", "topic": "territory", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "page_url": "https://visua.no/en/charts/deepstate-monthly-change/", "dataset_url": "https://visua.no/data/deepstate-monthly-change.csv", "meta_url": "https://visua.no/data/deepstate-monthly-change.meta.json", "datawrapper_id": "SzHlm", "chart_png_url": "https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/SzHlm/full.png", "supabase_view": "chart_deepstate_control_monthly_change", "cadence": "Daily, ~06:00 UTC", "last_updated": "2026-07-28", "key_points": [ "The chart shows monthly data on net territory gain by month from February 2022. Above zero, Russia gained ground that month; below zero, Ukraine did. It is based on data from Deepstate Map. A few data points from before April 2022 come from Warmapper.org.", "Due to the date range, territory gains since 2023 are almost invisible. This is by design to show the two stages of the full-scale war: the war of destruction in 2022, and the war of attrition since 2023. Although territory change after 2022 was limited in comparison, the fighting, losses, and destruction were more severe. ", "The line on the chart depicts a net figure, so even a near-flat month can hide territory changing hands in both directions. For a breakdown by side, check this chart.", "Scope is territory inside Ukraine's internationally recognised borders. Crimea and the pre-2022 LPR/DPR footprint are excluded, so the series isolates post-2022 movement; Ukraine's 2024 Kursk incursion (Ukrainian-held Russian territory) is a separate ledger and is excluded entirely." ], "source": { "key": "deepstate", "name": "DeepState Map", "short_name": "DeepState", "url": "deepstatemap.live", "description": "What it shows\nDeepState is a Ukrainian OSINT project publishing an interactive map of the Russo-Ukrainian war, updated daily. The map distinguishes occupied, liberated, and contested (grey-zone) territory.\n\nWhat it's based on\nThe territorial control depicted on the map is based on geolocated footage, open-source reports, community submissions, and direct communication with Ukrainian units.\n\nWho's behind it\nIt is created and maintained by NGO DeepstateUA, which has employees and a volunteer team of over 100 people. The founders of the project are Roman Pohorilyi and Ruslan Mykula. \n\nAlignment to the sides of the war\nThroughout the full-scale war, DeepState positions itself as a fact-based project. The map has partnerships with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence and General Staff, and the project also has a closed map solution for the Ukrainian defence forces. DeepState has publicly stated that during Ukrainian offensive operations, it delays map updates for operational-security reasons. Yet it has contradicted the official position of the General Staff and spoken out publicly about Russian advances that the General Staff hadn't communicated prior.\n\nGeneral data risks and usefulness\nThe map data — like any source heavily based on OSINT — tends to be a lagging indicator.", "coverage": "April 2022 — present", "cadence": "Continuous · Snapshotted daily ~06:00 UTC", "citation": "DeepState. (2026). DeepState Map. https://deepstatemap.live.", "shared_points": [] }, "processing": [ { "n": "01", "title": "Snapshot", "desc": "Read DeepState’s own published area figures from their public API once a day, ~06:00 UTC. Each snapshot is stored with its capture time in the database so changes can be replayed." }, { "n": "02", "title": "Clean", "desc": "Normalise the raw figures into a tidy daily table: key each row by snapshot date and capture time, and add the fixed pre-2022 occupied baseline to express total Russian-controlled area." }, { "n": "03", "title": "Aggregate", "desc": "Derive the chart’s metric by differencing consecutive snapshots — month-end minus the previous month-end for the monthly charts, or snapshot-over-snapshot smoothed with a 7-day rolling average for the daily tempo. No geometry is involved; the input is DeepState’s scalar area number." }, { "n": "04", "title": "Round & publish", "desc": "Round to a sensible precision, write a one-row-per-period view, and refresh the Datawrapper chart." } ], "data_dictionary": [ { "name": "month", "type": "text", "unit": "YYYY-MM", "desc": "The completed calendar month, from Feb 2022 (the invasion) onward. One row per fully-elapsed month; the current partial month is excluded." }, { "name": "monthly_change_km2", "type": "number", "unit": "km²", "desc": "Net change in Russian-controlled area versus the previous month-end. Positive = Russian gains, negative = Ukrainian gains. Rounded to 2 decimals." } ], "citation": { "in_text": "P. Krasnomovets (2026)", "full": "P. Krasnomovets (2026). \"Big picture: From 2022 war of destruction to war of attrition.\" Processed from DeepState Map. Retrieved from https://visua.no/en/charts/deepstate-monthly-change/", "bibtex": "@misc{krasnomovets2026deepstatemonthlychange,\n author = {Krasnomovets, P.},\n title = {Big picture: From 2022 war of destruction to war of attrition},\n year = {2026},\n source = {DeepState Map},\n url = {https://visua.no/en/charts/deepstate-monthly-change/}\n}" }, "contact": "pavlo@visua.no", "issues_url": "https://github.com/krasnomovets/visua-pipeline/issues" }