Russia occupies Crimea, seized in 2014, and parts of four oblasts in eastern and southern Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. By widely cited estimates that adds up to roughly a fifth of the country's territory, but the exact share moves with the front line and depends on how you count. That is why a map with a date is more useful than a single number: the territorial-control layer on the Russia–Ukraine war map shows the current extent of the occupation and where the lines are shifting, and this guide explains how to read it.
Which parts of Ukraine are occupied?
The occupation has three layers in time. The first is Crimea, taken and annexed by Russia in 2014. The second is the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts held since 2014 by the Russian-backed "DPR" and "LPR" structures, known in Ukrainian usage as ORDLO. The third is the territory seized after the full-scale invasion of 24 February 2022: almost all of Luhansk oblast, a large part of Donetsk oblast and the southern parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, including the left bank of the Dnipro and the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Together they form a land corridor between Russia and Crimea.
The front is not static. In autumn 2022 Ukraine retook Kherson city and much of Kharkiv oblast; since 2023 Russia has pushed forward slowly and at high cost in the Donbas, and fighting has spread to the border oblasts on both sides. Every such shift changes the total — which is exactly why "how much" only makes sense with a date attached.
Why do sources give different percentages?
Three reasons. First, what is being counted: some tallies include Crimea and the pre-2022 ORDLO, others only the land taken since the invasion, and the gap is large because Crimea alone is several per cent of Ukraine's area. Second, the grey zone: the strip where neither side has a lasting presence is sometimes assigned to one side, sometimes to the other, sometimes to neither. Third, the date and resolution: a map drawn settlement by settlement gives a different result from one built on individual positions.
For these reasons battleMap does not print a fixed percentage on the page. A number would be stale within weeks; the map is refreshed daily.
What is the difference between occupied and contested territory?
On a territorial-control map, occupation means lasting control by one side: administration, logistics, prepared defensive positions. Contested territory is the belt where positions change from day to day, patrols from both sides move in and out, and claims of a village "taken" appear and are denied. Good maps draw that belt separately — as a grey zone or contested area — rather than handing it to either side. The glossary entry on the frontline polygon describes how such an area is drawn technically.
How are territorial-control maps made?
Nobody sees the whole front at once, so a control map is always a synthesis. The core sources are geolocated footage — a flag raised on a building, a vehicle in a recognisable spot — statements from both general staffs, local media reporting and satellite imagery showing trenches, burn scars and vehicle movement. Public analytical projects such as ISW and DeepState compile these traces every day and draw their own polygons, and the OSINT community cross-checks them. How that process works from the inside, and where it goes wrong, is covered in how frontlines are mapped; the underlying technique is geolocation.
How does battleMap draw its control layer?
battleMap does not run its own reconnaissance. The territorial-control layer is refreshed once a day from publicly available cartographic sources and overlaid on the event map; on the map itself it is toggled with the T key. On top of that layer, geolocated reports arrive roughly every five minutes: shelling, drone strikes, reported advances and withdrawals along specific sectors. Each report has a time, coordinates and a link to its source. The aggregation rules, the classification and the known limits are set out on the data sources and methodology page.
How do you read polygons and pins together?
A polygon is an assessment of control; a pin is a single report. A claim that a settlement has been taken will appear as a pin the same day, but the polygon only moves once further traces confirm the change — sometimes days later. If pins about assaults cluster right at the line while the polygon stays put, read it as "a line under pressure", not as "nothing happening". Pins far behind the line, on the other hand, are usually strikes on the rear, not a change of control. The full guide to reading the two layers is how to read a frontline map.
What are ORDLO, the DPR and the LPR?
ORDLO is a Ukrainian abbreviation for "certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts" — the areas that slipped out of Kyiv's control in 2014. They were run by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, recognised by Russia just before the 2022 invasion and later declared part of the Russian Federation. The great majority of the international community regards these areas, like Crimea, as occupied Ukrainian territory, and that is how the battleMap layer treats them.
How do you track front-line changes day by day?
- Compare dates, not impressions. Changes are measured in hundreds of metres and single settlements; two screenshots without dates cannot be compared.
- Look at sectors. Pokrovsk, Kupiansk, Chasiv Yar, the Zaporizhzhia axis — each has its own dynamics, and a front-wide average hides where things are actually moving.
- Read both sides' statements. The Ukrainian General Staff and the Russian Ministry of Defence describe the same sectors differently; the map shows both, each with its attribution.
- Use the history. The free dashboard keeps 30 days of events, and the REST API with a key returns a longer range for your own statistics.
- Cross-check with other sources. The wider picture is in the Ukraine war map tracker guide and in the daily reports of public analytical centres.
Key takeaways
- Russia occupies Crimea and parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts — by widely cited estimates roughly a fifth of Ukraine.
- The percentage depends on what is counted (Crimea? ORDLO? the grey zone?) and on the date, so a map beats a number.
- A polygon is an assessment of control, a pin is a report — they change at different speeds.
- battleMap's control layer comes from public cartographic sources and is refreshed daily.
- Front-line change is read sector by sector and with a date, not as one figure.