UKRAINE MAP. Situation maps, day 22

UKRAINE MAP. On the 22nd day of the attempted invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the pressure on the major cities in the east and south of the country seems to be increasing with intense bombardments. But the conquest of the Russian forces remains at a standstill…

[Mis à jour le 17 mars 2022 à 12h08] The war in Ukraine, launched by Vladimir Putin on February 24, turned into barely two weeks of invasion into a war of positions, Russian troops slowly advancing in a country in resistance. Several major cities have been taken or are besieged on several fronts across the country.

On the 22nd day of the conflict this Thursday, March 17, 2022, fighting is still raging in several places and bombardments are intensifying in kyiv and in the metropolises in the east and south of the country, but without any new notable conquest by Russian forces:

• In Kyiv, the Russian forces are trying to establish an encirclement from the west and the east. The capital, which has been emptied of at least half of its approximately three million inhabitants since the start of the conflict according to AFP. Strategic sites are shelled, several civilian buildings were also bombed. Further northeast, the towns of Sumy and Chernihiv, surrounded, have suffered heavy civilian casualties in recent days after a series of attacks on residential areas, schools or in front of businesses.
• To the East, the city of Kharkiv is still targeted by the Russian army. The encirclement is still not complete and the city continues to be heavily bombarded. The big city of Dnipro, more in the center, also continues to be bombarded. Attacks which could initiate the rapprochement of troops from the south, mainly from Crimea, and from the east, in particular from the separatist territories of Donbass.
• In the south, the Russians are still trying to take Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of ​​Azov, besieged for days. Heavy fighting is reported, the city’s drama theatre, which housed hundreds of civilians, was the target of a strike on Wednesday. 400,000 people are still surviving in this city, deprived of water, electricity, heating and food, in nightmarish humanitarian conditions according to the Red Cross. Moscow’s capture of Mariupol would be an important turning point in the invasion of Ukraine. It would make it possible to completely link up the Russian forces coming from the Crimea and the separatist and Russian troops in the Donbass.
  The attacks are also moving towards the south-west of Ukraine, towards Odessa. The Russian army has already taken possession of the city of Kherson, where the Russian National Guard has begun to be deployed for law enforcement operations. Intense attacks on Mikolaiv are reported.
• West, the fighting began on Friday. A strike Monday against a television tower near Rivne (north-west) left 19 dead and nine injured, according to local authorities.

News agency cards

Since the start of the conflict, maps have played a key role in understanding the Russian military operation and in monitoring the situation live. Several agencies provide the press with daily updated maps and charts. This is the case of Agence France Presse in France, but also of specialized services such as Visactu again, or Graphic News, an independent international agency entirely funded by media publishers. Most of these maps are updated at the end of the day (depending on the update dates, the maps presented below may date back to the day before).

The map of the Ukrainian site Liveuamap

One of the most valuable documents currently available online is the map drawn up by Liveuamap.coman independent Ukrainian platform that compiles and cross-checks information from media sources and social media and allows you to view, in real time or almost, the clashes and strikes that follow one another in the country.

Another interactive map published on MapHub allows to visualize the attacks of Russia and the acts of defense of Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict. The tool, which lists hundreds of events to date, is overseen by the Center for Information Resilience (CIR), an independent not-for-profit UK business that is also dedicated to identifying, tackling and exposing influence operations. The CIR aims to “raise awareness of the threat that influence operations, including disinformation, pose to democracy and objective truth, and to help counter them”.

A few days after the start of the war in Ukraine, the French Ministry of Defense set up a situation update and a map detailing the theater of operations. The map is available on the Ministry of Defense portal and is updated daily.

Situation maps from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW)

Daily reports and maps by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) supply the press (including Le Monde) with recent and precise information. The Institute for the Study of War is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization. It “promotes an informed understanding of military affairs through trusted research, reliable analysis, and innovative education.”

Media cards in France and abroad

In France, reference sites such as Le Monde or Le Figaro offer to follow the advance of Russian troops via a series of maps based themselves on reliable data from the sources mentioned above. The Decoders of the World offer a map of the day-to-day development of the Russian invasion, including a slider to navigate the conflict timeline. Le Figaro has established several maps based on information from the Liveuamap site, the Graphicnews agency and other press agencies such as AFP. Abroad, the sites of the New York Times and the Washington Post, the two leading American media, also offer up-to-date maps.

The Battle of kyiv Mapped

The battle of kyiv, in particular, has been mapped by several media in France and around the world. Visactu, a French agency specializing in the production of press infographics, regularly offers updates on the situation in the Ukrainian capital. Le Monde, Le Figaro, the New York Times or the Washington Post are among the media that present the best summaries of the situation, such as the Kyiv Independenta newspaper from the Ukrainian capital which regularly reports on the situation.

In the UK, the BBC also has a page to follow the fighting in Ukraine. Some maps also allow you to find out about the situation in the capital. Another British media, the FinancialTimes also declines his cards until the clashes in kyiv.