Hudson War Mapping - Reporting on the Ukraine War

Dobropillya direction, Donetsk oblast.

As reported by pro-Russian sources, Ukrainian forces, including Skala, are launching counterattacking operations from Zolotyy Kolodyaz toward Kucheriv Yar, Rubizhne, and Vilne.

The likely aim of these attacks is to force pressure on the flank of Russian forces fighting in eastern Dobropillya, forcing them to withdraw and delaying the fall of the city.

PSA for those who are corrupted by the whole Schrodinger's Russia narrative:

(For those who don't know, a popular narrative that has been going around since the start of the war is that Russia is simultaneously far too weak to conquer Ukraine yet also about to take over the entire Western world)

The Russian army is much, much stronger now than it was at the start of the war. I am of the view that when considering war as a holistic extension of politics, Russia has the strongest army on the planet.

As my good friend WillyOAM has said, The US is brilliant at conducting warFARE. They can bomb this, bomb that, take out leaders, but they don't understand WAR. They are brilliant against non-state actors, but as soon as the opportunity to force regime change on Iran arose, the US absolutely botched it.

Russia understands war extremely well now. Engaging in a brutal 5-year long war of attrition is nowhere near what Russia planned, but it has allowed them to transform their fighting force into an almost completely unrecognisable one from 2022. Look at their adaptations: using missiles, glide bombs, strike UAVs, FPV drones, artillery and MLRS all in conjunction with one another to inflict maximum attrition on their enemy.

Not only does Russia possess what could be argued to be a full-scale war economy, but they have expanded their ground forces to 1.5 million men, and most importantly of all, they are immensely battle-hardened. Russian command isn't stupid - they don't launch costly offensives to take swathes of territory, because they know taking territory doesn't win wars (something the US has failed to realise) The west has not seen CONVENTIAL conflict in many, many years. Russia would not be a pushover in a hypothetical global all-out war. Russia would likely sweep through much of eastern Europe before a stalemate is reached in Germany and the Alps. This is my speculative opinion.

Underestimating Russia would only make fighting a war against them more difficult. The Western political sphere is also a huge weakness - neoliberal democracies are not as socially cohesive in wartime as autocracies.

The moral of the story is do not underestimate Russia. Napoleon made that mistake, so did the Germans. The west must learn from Russia in order to fight effectively against it.

Impacts

Approaching Kanatove airport.

2 additional cruises toward Krivyy Rih.

Likely also going onward to Kanatove airbase.

Further launches of Kh-59/69 cruise missiles from a Russian Sukhoi 57 over Kherson oblast.

They likely impacted Kanatove Airbase, Kirovohrad Oblast.

the Kh-59/69s to Kropyvnytskyy.

2 Russian Kh-59/69 cruise missiles to Krivyy Rih.

Vehicle losses have been released for the month of September.

Primary credit: @HeyHey_Hayden TG

In total, Russia lost 32 vehicles whilst Ukraine lost 175. A ratio of 1:5.5

Excluding Armoured cars/MRAPs, which skew the ratio as Russia hardly utilises them at all whilst Ukraine does so in huge number for transport purposes, Russia lost 32 vehicles whilst Ukraine lost 69. A ratio of 1:2.2

Regarding self-propelled artillery, which is a great indicator of capacity to inflict attrition, Russia lost 7 vehicles whilst Ukraine lost 37. A ratio of 1:5.3

Russian losses are counted by UkraineWarSpotting. Ukrainian losses are counted by LostArmour. Credit to HeyHeyHayden for compiling numbers.

Of course, these vehicle losses are all geolocated and only completely destroyed vehicles are counted. There could of course be some mistakes.

The common cope that i hear: “But Russia uses only civilian vehicles! Ukraine actually cares about the lives of their soldiers! Civilian vehicles are not counted in this!”

Are we still seriously falling for “meatwave assaults” in 2026?

A) I have spoken to Ukrainian soldiers that confirm the AFU also uses civilian vehicles in non-combat roles, for transport purposes. Russia does the same. In a war of attrition, cheap but good enough equipment is better than extremely expensive perfect equipment.

B) Adding onto that, Russia has a huge domestic war economy which can churn out so many civilian vehicles that it wouldn’t matter how many were destroyed. If Ukraine’s military vehicles such as SPGs, IFVs etc are destroyed, it needs to wait on deliveries from the west.

C) If AFU command cared about the lives of their soldiers, the Robotyne and Kursk mass suicides would never have happened. Ukraine quite literally burned through tens of billions of dollars worth of Western vehicles in Kursk oblast alone.

D) Even if vehicle losses favoured Ukraine by 2x, this would be nowhere close to the relative attrition needed to be inflicted upon Russia, because of Russia’s industrial capacity.

E) Keep in mind that armies collapse long before they are physically out of manpower or vehicles, as per historical examples such as the Germans in WW1 Collapse is induced when overall attrition inflicted reaches a critical point. Drones only mask this attrition and delay the final outcome. Ukraine is obviously far far closer to this critical point than Russia.

Apologies if the pace of my posts begins to slow down a bit.

I'm returning to some normal life duties now after a couple months off.

As reported by AMK, the front has largely stabilised east of Lyman.

Limited Russian counterinfiltrations around the area of Yampil and the forest east of Lyman continue as the front likely is settling on the Zherebets river.

Further north, Russian forces under heavy Ukrainian pressure are slowly withdrawing to the Zherebets at Balka Zhuravka and Makiivka.

The only noteworthy shift is a potential Ukrainian bridgehead over the Zherebets at the village of Yampolivka. This is unconfirmed, and if true, is likely very small in size.

As AMK correctly points out, Russia has been extremely productive in other areas of attrition. Strategic, operational, and tactical level strikes all add up into what could be considered a metophorical "pool" of overall inflicted attrition.

These monthly frontline changes of a net gain of Minus ~486.9 km² are the worst for Russia since the November 2022 Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive.

Other maps, such as Deepstate, will not show such a large Ukrainian advance as they have not yet updated their maps in areas where Ukrainian forces are actively counterattacking (Lyman, Komar, Stepnohirsk, Novopavlivka, Kupyansk, Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, and Sumy) due to OPSEC and informational purposes.

This was a very bleak month for Russia on the frontline, but a very productive one for them when it comes to mid-to-long-range strikes. It's likely that in the coming months, the monthly changes will once again flip back in favour of Russia, and stabilise in the low-hundreds of km² throughout winter.

Don't get me wrong, this is great news on the tactical level. But don't get ahead of yourself and lose sight of the holistic art of war. Frontline advances are only one aspect of the entire strategic balance of the conflict.

Vehicle losses for September are going to be available tommorow, which will be very interesting to see.

Changes on the frontline in Ukraine for September 2026:

Yellow = Russian advances
Light blue = Ukrainian advances

Russian advances:
Zaporizhzhia Oblast: ~94.6 km²
Donetsk Oblast: ~43.8 km²
Kharkiv Oblast: ~37.1 km²
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast: ~7.6 km²

Total: ~183.1 km² (down by 57.71% compared to August)

Ukrainian advances:
Donetsk Oblast: ~458.3 km²
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast: ~55.4 km²
Sumy Oblast: ~42.9 km²
Kharkiv Oblast: ~39.2 km²
Zaporizhzhia Oblast: ~37.4 km²
Luhansk Oblast: ~36.8 km²

Total: ~670.0 km² (up by 126.81% compared to August)

Note: The main figures (not including the section below) covers net gains for each side. Ukrainian advances that took place on territory Russia occupied within this month will simply be subtracted from the Russian total, and vice versa.

Net changes overall (Russian advances minus Ukrainian advances):

Minus 486.9 km² in favour of Russia.

4 Kh-59/69 cruise missiles just impacted something near Voznesensk, Mykolaiv Oblast.

Possibly the airbase.