From Above and From Below: Challenging Flat Representations of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in the International Context

Abstract

This text presents a critical analysis of selected maps representing the Russian invasion of Ukraine produced by international actors to analyse and document the war. It focuses on maps produced by the Institute for the Study of War (a non-profit located in Washington D.C.) and how other organisations and media circulated these maps, contributing to a mainstream visual perspective on the war. With the control of terrain as the focal concern of these maps, they establish a vision of space in war as concentrated on the shifting frontline. The military perspective is enforced with a timeline view and the production of daily maps which organise the war into short fragments of time. In doing so, these maps rarely offer more context - whether by lacking a more complex temporal view, or insights into different aspects of war such as humanitarian actions, movement of civilians, long-term ecological damage, geopolitical relations, etc. In reading the maps, the paper will demonstrate a critical map analysis approach that accounts for mapmaking’s social, material and temporal relations. By proposing a set of questions on map data, design, purposes, perspectives, uses and effects, the paper aims to introduce the reader to critical ways of reading maps representing the war.