An OSINT Analyst Exposed Maps From The Russian Ministry Of Defense Intended For Putin
- 5.07.2026, 3:37
The difference from the actual data was about 1,900 square kilometers.
At a meeting on July 3 at the auxiliary command post of the Russian Federation’s Joint Task Force, the generals reporting to Vladimir Putin on their successes sat against a backdrop of blurry maps. Later, these images were published in high resolution on the Kremlin’s website. An OSINT analyst going by the nickname M0nstas compared the Russian Ministry of Defense’s maps with those from the Ukrainian project DeepState, writes “Agency”.
Putin’s first visit to the command post in six months was intended to demonstrate the Russian army’s success and was filled with a list of various settlements that, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Russian military had either captured or were planning to capture. The generals read their reports against a backdrop of maps. This had not been the case on previous occasions: on December 27, the maps were blurred, and on November 30, there were no maps on the walls.
The difference between the maps from the Russian Ministry of Defense and DeepState is 1,900 square kilometers, writes M0nstas. On the first map accompanying the post, the difference is highlighted in yellow; on the other two, it is highlighted in pink. DeepState’s data on territories under Russian control is shown in red.
In addition to Konstantinovka, the Ministry of Defense map lists Chasov Yar and the territories west of the city as occupied by Russia. Furthermore, the city of Orekhov is shown within the territories occupied by Russia.
The Russian Ministry of Defense’s maps also claim that Russian troops have come very close to the village of Pokrovskoye in the Dnipropetrovsk region. However, according to the DeepState map, the Russian Armed Forces are only approaching the village of Ternovate, 20 km from Pokrovskoye.
The situation is similar with the city of Nikolaevka. On the Ministry of Defense’s maps, the Russian army has already entered the city. DeepState’s maps show that it hasn’t even come close.
On the Ministry of Defense’s maps, Russian troops are much closer to the city of Zaporizhzhia than on DeepState’s maps.
The discrepancy in Russian territorial gains between the Ministry of Defense’s maps and DeepState’s can be described as an exaggeration, said military analyst Kirill Mikhailov in an interview with “The Agency.” DeepState’s maps are significantly closer to reality, he noted.
At the same time, the discrepancy between the president’s statements and the DeepState map is even greater. Putin said that since the beginning of the year, Russia has captured more than 3,000 square kilometers, while according to DeepState, the figure is only 770 square kilometers.
Late in the evening on July 3, the Kremlin released footage of Putin’s first visit in six months to the auxiliary command post of the Russian Federation’s Joint Group of Forces in Ukraine. As expected, the president was briefed there on the “capture” of Konstantinovka and other “advances” by the Russian army.
The very late publication time was likely due to a desire to make the event more visible to the U.S.
Commenting on the video featuring Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy writes explicitly: “Putin has decided to lie to the world and to the President of the United States about the situation on the front lines: he claims that Russia has allegedly captured Konstantinovka in Donbas. Of course, this is not true—it’s just another Russian lie designed to generate at least some news.”
After that, Zelenskyy proposed that Putin meet him in Konstantinovka: “If Konstantinovka is now under Russian control, then Putin will likely have no problem meeting me there and finding diplomatic solutions to finally end the war.” However, in the same post, the Ukrainian president expressed doubt that the Russian leader would agree to this, since “the truth is very different from his words.”