Context, not targeting. This atlas describes structure and history. It deliberately excludes current locations, live strength, unit movements and anything operationally sensitive — the content model has no fields for them. Branch depth reflects what can be established from public sources, not the size, capability or importance of a force: a thin branch means a state publishes little, and record counts are never a measure of strength.
Current state
Records assessed as of 2026-09
How the forces on each side are organised — formations, lineage and subordination, never locations or strength.
Ukrainian forces
The unified military of the Ukrainian state — ground, air-assault, air, naval, marine, special-operations, unmanned and support branches under the General Staff. Expanded from its pre-2022 professional core into one of Europe's largest wartime militaries; this atlas records its structure at branch and formation level only.
Ukrainian forces
Forces under the Ministry of Internal Affairs fighting alongside the army — a parallel military strand whose combat brigades hold front-line sectors under operational control of the AFU's commands while remaining institutionally interior. Its two corps of 2025 — the 1st built around Azov, the 2nd around Khartiia — are the most publicly documented example.
Ukrainian forces
A militarised border agency outside the Armed Forces; its detachments have fought in the line since 2022, most visibly in the defence of Mariupol.
Ukrainian forces
Combat formations publicly associated with intelligence and security services (HUR/GUR, SBU). A browsing group, not a command — the two services answer to different institutions (the Ministry of Defence and, for the SBU, the President), each member's actual parent is stated on its own record, and much of this space is deliberately under-documented.
Ukrainian forces
Combat formations raised under the Interior Ministry outside the National Guard — police-based assault units, most visibly the assault brigade the ministry's Offensive Guard programme raised from police special-purpose regiments in 2023. A browsing group, not a command; each member's actual parent institution would be stated on its own record. The group currently has no records beneath it, which is a research gap and not a claim that none exist.
Ukrainian forces
Foreign volunteer and anti-Kremlin opposition formations fighting on the Ukrainian side. A browsing group only — these organisations do NOT share a command; each serves under its own documented Ukrainian parent structure, stated on each record. Two frameworks recur beneath the grouping: the International Legion created in February 2022 under the Ground Forces, and the formations publicly associated with Defence Intelligence.
Ukrainian forces
A routing node, not a command. The Kyiv-aligned backers — the United States, the European Union, NATO and Poland — supply weapons, financing, intelligence and transit rather than forces, and none of them commands anything in this tree. Each now carries its own strategic profile, including stated and assessed objectives, constraints and leverage, under Profiles.
Russian forces
The umbrella military of the Russian state — ground, aerospace, airborne, naval, strategic rocket, special-operations, railway and materiel-support branches under the General Staff. This atlas records its structure at branch, army and formation level only; it publishes no dispositions, strengths or locations, and several of the volunteer and irregular structures fighting alongside it sit outside this tree by design.
Russian forces
The National Guard of Russia — rear-area security, occupation and internal-control roles.
Russian forces
Volunteer and contract formations raised under Ministry of Defence structures — the BARS combat-reserve detachments and the formations recruited through the Redut shell. A browsing group, not a single command: each member's documented parent is stated on its record, and both members are category records because the ministry publishes no list of the units.
Russian forces
Formations recruited in or branded from Chechnya. Explicitly NOT a unified "Chechen army": "Akhmat" is partly an official designation and partly a brand, and the real parents differ — Ministry of Defence, Rosgvardia, or the Chechen Interior Ministry — as stated on each member's record.
Russian forces
After the 2023 mutiny and the death of its founder, Wagner's structures were reorganised under Ministry of Defence control.
Russian forces
The former "people's republic" corps and their notable formations of 2014–2022. A historical and lineage category: after the 2022 annexations these structures were absorbed into regular Russian ones — the two corps reported re-formed as the 51st and 3rd Combined Arms Armies in 2024 — and are not shown here as if unchanged.
Structure. Each side is a set of trees: state military, interior forces, and browsing groups. A record marked “Grouping · not a command” exists only so related organisations can be found together — its members do not share a command, and each states its real parent institution.
Record states. A full profile has passed source review. A stub is an honest structural placeholder — name, place in the tree, broad role, and a dated status — awaiting research. Records that cannot yet meet even that threshold are held internally and do not appear on the site at all.
Subordination grades. Parent links are graded:confirmed, reported, disputed,historical, or unknown. Where a current parent cannot be verified — as with brigades amid Ukraine's rolling corps reform — the record says unknown rather than inventing precision.
Lineage, not amnesia. Reorganised, merged or disbanded organisations keep their records, marked with dated predecessor and successor links — Wagner's absorption after 2023 and the Donetsk and Luhansk corps are carried this way, never as if unchanged.
Every record carries a status as of date for its claims and a separate reviewed date for editorial checks — a review never silently refreshes a status date.
Dated changes the records in this module state about themselves, and the corrections the public log records against this atlas — newest first.
A FORMATION CARRIED AT THE WRONG ECHELON FOR NINE MONTHS. The record described the 336th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade, a Baltic Fleet marine brigade at Baltiysk, and dated that structure to July 2026. Russia's defence ministry announced on 22 December 2025 that the brigade had been expanded into a new Baltic Fleet naval infantry division, one of whose regiments retains the number 336. The record now carries the formation at divisional echelon, with the brigade designation as a predecessor and an alias, and its structural date moved back to December 2025 — the newest date for which the structure is actually sourced. The division's own designation is reported as the 120th Guards Naval Infantry Division and has not been publicly confirmed, so the record is not titled by it, and whether the division is manned to establishment is not published.
STRUCTURE ADDED, AND A MISSING VOCABULARY. Ukraine's Logistics Forces and Medical Forces were carried as branch records with no substructure at all, because the atlas had no honest word for the bodies they are built from: a central directorate and a military medical clinical centre are not formations, and filing either as one forced a tactical echelon ("brigade") onto it. The record model now carries a "support organisation" type with four organisational echelons — directorate, centre, institution and depot — and eighteen records were added under the two branches: the Armament and Rear services with their named central directorates and the 63rd Repair Base, and the six regional military medical clinical centres, the mobile hospitals and the Ukrainian Military Medical Academy. Both branch records were promoted from structural stubs to reviewed profiles.
The Azov record was renamed to its current designation (12th Special Forces Brigade "Azov") and placed under the National Guard's 1st Corps "Azov" (2025), with predecessor lineage recorded back to the 2014 volunteer battalion.
KRAKEN 1654 (previously listed as "Kraken" under the National Guard) was re-grouped under intelligence-linked formations, reflecting its documented 2022 military-intelligence origin. Its current formal subordination is publicly contested and remains marked disputed pending source review; it has not been assigned to the 3rd Army Corps.
Russian Naval Infantry was shown directly under the Armed Forces of Russia; it is now correctly placed as a component of the Russian Navy, which has been added as a branch record.
The collapsed "Navy & Naval Infantry" node was split: the Navy record now covers the fleet arm, and the Marine Corps has its own record as a structurally distinct branch established in 2023.
The Aerospace Forces (VKS) record, previously a single flat branch, now carries its umbrella structure: Air Force, Air & Missile Defence Forces and Space Forces.
The Wagner-successor record is now titled "Wagner Group → Africa Corps" and carries machine-readable lineage (formed 2014, reorganised 2023 under Ministry of Defence control) instead of presenting the organisation as institutionally unchanged.
Established as a dedicated unmanned-systems branch of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — the first such branch in any military — formalising what began as volunteer and crowdfunded units.
Full history on the corrections log.
