Ukraine: Map of Russian Control on Feb. 27, 2022

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Map by Evan Centanni and Djordje Djukic. Contact us for permission to use this map.

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Timeline by Djordje Djukic, with additional reporting by Evan Centanni

Russian Invasion Map: Ukraine at War

Months of US warnings that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine were proven right last Thursday, as Russian troops, tanks, ships, and aircraft flooded into the neighboring country. Russia had already taken over Ukraine's southern province of Crimea in 2014, and pro-Russia separatists claimed to have split off from eastern Ukraine after seizing much of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. But Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a massive new escalation, unprecedented in Europe since World War II.

The above map shows control lines as of Sunday night - just before the first round of ceasefire talks - when Russian forces had captured significant chunks of rural Ukraine, but so far not gained control of any major cities (the situation a day later remains mostly unchanged). The map is based on reporting from various news media on the status of cities and towns, with lines of control in the countryside estimated with the help of other conflict-tracking websites and social media accounts.

Syria Control Map & Report - February 2022 (Subscription)

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Research by Djordje Djukic. Map by onestopmap.com, Evan Centanni, and Djordje Djukic

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Despite no changes to Syria's lines of control since 2020, the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) has continued a bloody insurgency in the central desert, which has increasingly occupied the Assad government and its Russian and Iranian allies. Meanwhile, fighting between Kurdish- and Turkish-led forces has carried on sporadically, and a sort of rebel resurgence in the southwest has come and gone.

See all this and more on the latest update to PolGeoNow's concise, professional Syrian Civil War control map, which includes a timeline of changes since our previous Syria map report last November, with sources cited.

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Exclusive map report includes:

• Up-to-date illustration of current territorial control in Syria, color-coded for the Assad government, rebel groups, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Colorblind accessible.
• Pattern showing areas of "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) dispersed operational presence now that the group has lost its last firmly-held territory.
  
• Special symbols for joint Turkish/rebel control and joint SDF/government control in the border region
• Extent of "security corridor" sponsored by Turkey and Russia in the rebel-held northwest
• Outline showing approximate location of the one publicly-known US "deconfliction zone"
• Special symbols indicating towns dominated by rebels of the former Al Qaeda Nusra Front (now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS) and by the Kurdish YPG militia (part of the SDF anti-"Islamic State" coalition)
• Detailed indication of city-by-city control, including key towns and other locations important to current events
• Locations of recent control changes and other important events, including Tafas, Ayn Issa, Resafa, Atmah, and more
• Detailed timeline of important events and changes to territorial control since November 22, 2020, compiled by our Syria-Iraq expert, with links to sources.

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Mozambique Control Map: Cabo Delgado Insurgency Shifts West - February 2022 (Subscription)

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Map by Evan Centanni and Djordje Djukic. Timeline by Djordje Djukic, with additional reporting by Evan Centanni

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After being driven from the key northeastern towns of Palma and Mocímboa da Praia by Rwandan-led forces, Mozambique's insurgents have dispersed westward as far as Meluco and Mueda districts, as well as the neighboring province of Niassa. Meanwhile, they've also increased cross-border raids into Tanzania.

 

See all this and more on the newest update to PolGeoNow's Mozambique territorial control map report, which includes a timeline of changes and important events since our previous Cabo Delgado map report at the end of last August. While the main map is focused in on Cabo Delgado province, events in Niassa province are labelled on a supplementary full-country map included in the report.

This map and report are premium content, available to paid subscribers of the PolGeoNow Conflict Mapping Service.

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Exclusive map report includes:

• Detailed illustration of approximate current territorial control in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province, color-coded for insurgents affiliated with the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) vs. the Mozambican government and allies (including Rwandan and the SADC's SAMIM troops). Colorblind accessible. 
• Detailed indication of city-by-city control status, including for many relevant smaller towns and villages.
• Detailed indication of which towns and villages have subject to insurgent raids or pro-government military operations since the end of August 2021, including sites across the border in Tanzania.
  
• Contextual details including district boundaries, rivers, major roads, and terrain.
  
• Sites of international economic interest: Total's suspended LNG site, offshore natural gas fields, and Montepuez ruby mine.
  
• Key locations from the news, including Ngapa, Nova Zambezia, Chitoio, Quinto Congresso, Nambungali, and many more.
• Supplementary map showing the insurgency's location within Mozambique as a whole, also labeling towns in Niassa province that have come under attack, such as Mecula, Naulala, and Chimene.
  
• Accompanying article with detailed timeline of territorial control changes and key political and military developments since late July, with sources cited. 

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Mandatory Attendance: Why is North Korea the only country suspended from the Olympics for not participating?

Location of North Korea and neighboring countries. Map by Johannes Barre & Patrick Mannion (CC BY-SA) (source)

North Korea Banned from 2022 Winter Olympics

As readers of our updated Parade of Nations feature know, this year's Winter Olympics in Beijing are missing one of the usual teams: North Korea. In fact, North Korea wasn't even allowed to attend. 

That's because last year the country's Olympic committee chose not to attend the Summer Olympics in Tokyo - out of what it insisted were COVID-19 concerns - and as punishment, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended it from participation for all of 2022.*

Wait...what? There's a punishment for not attending the Olympics? And that punishment is...not being allowed to attend the Olympics? Then why has this never happened before? If those are the questions you're asking yourself, you're not alone.

We had even more questions, but we couldn't find the answers anywhere in news reporting, official websites, or even Wikipedia - so we went deeper. To find out what we learned, keep reading for the whole story, or skip to the bottom for a bullet-point summary.

Parade of Nations: Which Countries Are (and Aren't) in the Olympics? (Beijing 2022)

This is an updated version of an article first published in 2012. To see previous versions, view all Olympics articles on PolGeoNow.

Map of all countries in the Olympics and their regional associations. By Evan Centanni, modeled after this map.

After the delay to the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, the Olympics are back on schedule! The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China officially open tomorrow, February 4th. They'll be the second Olympics hosted by China, after the 2008 Summer Games, and will even use some of the same facilities. 

These are the third Olympics in a row to be held in East Asia, after PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2020 (actually held in 2021) and only the fourth-ever Winter Olympics to be held outside of Europe and North America, following the 1972 and 1998 games hosted in Japan and the 2018 PyeongChang games in South Korea.

Of course, it wouldn't be an Olympic opening ceremony without the Parade of Nations. But how many countries are there in the games, and is everyone included? Read on for PolGeoNow's updated guide to the roster of Olympic Nations...