The Strange Transformation of the Front Line in Ukraine

On Jan. 5, 2025, my volunteer platoon attached to the 23rd Special Purpose Battalion of the Presidential Brigade entered a 1-kilometer-long tree line called CHAI, on the outskirts of Kotlyne, a few kilometers west of Pokrovsk, Ukraine. Our task was to occupy a position whose status on DeepState, an open-source map tracking military operations in the Russo-Ukrainian war, had been shifting out of gray for five days. On DeepState’s map, different colors illustrate the fighting situation: the red area is held by the aggressor, while green or blue areas show territory successfully defended or