Overnight, another drone incursion into Lithuania was reported, with NATO scrambling fighter jets and helicopters to shoot it down.

The drone reportedly entered the Kaunas area from the direction of Belarus. A spokesperson for the Lithuanian national crisis management centre stated that the origin of the drone has not yet been determined.

This morning, Ukrainian drones attacked the Syzran Oil Refinery in Samara Oblast.

Multiple impacts were recorded, resulting in fires breaking out at multiple different parts of the refinery.

Last night, Ukraine carried out an attack on the Beriev Aircraft Plant in the city of Taganrog, Rostov Oblast, using missiles of an unknown type.

According to unconfirmed reports, there were four missile impacts. Drones also reportedly struck an Ozon logistics warehouse in the city.

A fire could be seen burning following the attacks.

To reflect the ongoing change in tactics in the war, I have adjusted the layout of my "infiltration zone" layer on my interactive map.

While I have had this layer for some time now, the layer has now been changed to look more like a "shadow" laid across the frontline rather than a "second grey-zone". As before, it covers the grey-zone, as well as the Russian and Ukrainian control zones. With both sides increasingly infiltrating the other's lines with small groups of soldiers, and with the quantities of soldiers concentrated along the "line of contact" decreasing further due to such heavy drone usage, the maps must continue to evolve in order to accurately reflect the frontline situation.

This is why I, and others, call this ongoing phenomenon in Ukraine the "death of the conventional frontline".

For those wonder what the difference between the "infiltration zone" and the "grey zone" on my map is, I will explain it here:

The "infiltration zone" (the "shadow" overlaid on the map) represents the maximum area where soldiers of both sides can be present at any one time. For example, in Kostyantynivka, some isolated groups of Ukrainian soldiers remain trapped south of the city near Ivanopillya, while Russian DRGs are actively infiltrating up to the outskirts of Druzhkivka, nearly 18 km away. This 18 km-wide area can't be considered a "grey-zone", as large parts of it are still technically "controlled" by one side (e.g. eastern/southern Kostyantynivka by Russia, and most of Oleksijevo-Druzhkivka by Ukraine), but the lack of soldiers concentrated along the frontline allows for these infiltrations to take place at depth. This increasingly large infiltration zone is a result of how tactics in this war are evolving, and is typically not caused by a lack of control by each side over their "lines".

The "grey-zone" (the empty area between the red and blue polygons) represents the area of active fighting, where both sides remain present in mixed and overlapping positions (some call this a "layered pie"). Both sides infiltrate this area and engage in periodic clashes, however for it to be considered a "grey-zone", the attacking side must be infiltrating it repeatedly and somewhat regularly. The so-called one-time infiltrations, which may occur once every couple of weeks, are part of the larger infiltration zone.

The "control zone" (the areas of red and blue on the map) includes parts of the infiltration zone. As I said before, one side could be conducting irregular infiltrations into the other's lines (whether that be with DRGs or small assault groups), but are never able to maintain a presence or a regular level of infiltration, and it still be considered "controlled" by the other side. A good example of this is west of Druzhkivka, in the villages of Novoandriivka and Novohryhorivka.

For something to be "controlled" by one side, it doesn't necessarily have to be fully "consolidated". Consolidation refers to the process of securing, organising, and stabilising newly captured territory to later use it to develop additional successes on the tactical or strategic level. This process can involve setting up observation posts, organising logistics, establishing command centres or temporary deployment points, among other actions.

Generally, a "consolidation zone" of the attacking side will be outside the "infiltration zone", although in this modern type of infiltration war, the attacking side does sometimes enter the defending side's consolidation zone, resulting in occasional overlaps of the hypothetical consolidation zone (which doesn't have a separate layer on my map) with the infiltration zone. An example of this right now is the Novotroitske area northeast of Dobropillya, where Russia DRGs were recently active within Ukraine's zone of consolidation behind the multi-layered "New Donbas" defensive lines.

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