What are Alerts?
The Alerts layer shows current air-raid, drone, missile, and other threat activity on the map for Ukraine, Russia, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. It brings together reports aggregated from public channels and shows the areas currently affected.
There are two parts: the alert layer itself, which shows activity across the map, and your watched areas — places you choose to follow so you can receive notifications when they come under alert.
The screenshot on the right shows the alert layer in the app: the affected oblasts are shaded, and threat icons mark the type of threat inside them.
Reading the colors
A zone's color reflects what is known about the alert and the type of threat being reported:
- Red — an alert is active, but the threat type is not yet known; treat it as an urgent warning
- Orange — a specific fast-moving threat: ballistic and cruise missiles, guided bombs, artillery, or jet-powered drones
- Yellow — a specific slower-moving threat: propeller drones such as Shahed / Geran
- Gray — the alert has ended; shown briefly before the zone clears (see “When an alert ends” below)
As new reports come in, a zone's color can change — for example, from red to yellow once the alert is identified as a single slow drone.
Oblast, raion and city districts
Alerts are tracked at different administrative levels depending on the country. In Ukraine, a region-wide alert covers the whole oblast, shown as its individual raions rather than one solid block. A report that names a specific raion colors just that raion.
When a raion has its own report while its oblast is under alert at the same time, each area still shows a single color — whichever best describes what is currently known for it. So one oblast can display several colors at once, each on its own area and never layered on top of another.
Kyiv is divided into 10 city districts. When a city-wide Kyiv alert is active, all 10 district areas show the alert color. A report that identifies a specific Kyiv district can highlight that district separately. Zoom in to see the districts.
Russia has regions and, for some of them, detailed districts. An alert can cover an entire Russian region or a specific district within it. Moscow city and Moscow Oblast are separate areas, so an alert for Moscow city is shown on the city itself, not on the surrounding oblast.
Below, the alert details for an oblast (left) and for a single raion (right).
Threat icons
Within an active zone, icons show the type of threat being reported. They indicate the approximate location of the reported threat. A single zone can carry more than one icon when different threat types are reported at the same time.
When an alert ends
When an alert is lifted, the zone turns grey for about ten minutes as a brief all-clear window, then clears from the map. In the Alert Hub, the card for that area switches to grey and shows a “cleared” line with the time.
Watching an area
Long-press an area on the map to start watching it. What gets selected depends on the zoom level:
- Ukraine — below zoom 6 the whole oblast; from zoom 6 a single raion
- Kyiv — from zoom 8 a single city district; below that the whole city
- Russia — below zoom 6 the whole region; from zoom 6 a single district, where detailed districts are available
- Israel — a district
- Saudi Arabia — a province
Zoom in first where needed — smaller areas only become selectable when the map is zoomed in far enough.
A watched area is added to your list and outlined in green whenever it is calm. When it comes under alert, you receive a push notification and the area is shown according to its current alert state. Long-press the area again to turn watching off.
Watching a parent area and one of its child areas is mutually exclusive. Watching a raion or district removes the watch from its parent region, while watching the parent region removes watches from its child areas.
In the Alert Hub, tap a watched-area row to turn watching on or off. ✓ means the area is currently being watched; ✕ means it is in your list but watching is turned off. A turned-off area has no green outline and does not receive watched-area push notifications. Tap 🗑 to remove the area from your list completely.
The Alert Hub
Open the Alert Hub from the 🚨 button on the map toolbar. The badge on the button shows how many of your watched areas are currently under alert.
The Hub lists your watched areas. Areas that are currently under alert are shown at the top, with the most recent alerts first; the remaining areas follow below. Each row shows the area's flag and name, its current alert state, and whether watching is enabled (✓) or disabled (✕). A green outline means the area is being watched and is currently calm. A grey state means an alert has recently cleared. An active alert is shown with its current threat color.
When a watched area is under alert, its row expands to show more information, including the threat type, when the alert started, how long it has been active, its status, and the reported direction. Tap the alert card to open the full alert details.
You can also manage watching directly from the Hub: tap a row to turn watching on or off, or tap 🗑 to remove the area from your list.
Tap an alert icon, a highlighted zone, or an alert card in the Hub to open its details. The details show the area name, current status, threat type, and the source reports that contributed to the alert, including the original message and its posting time. The screenshot at the top right of this section shows these details for a raion alert with six source reports.
If an alert covers a watched area through its parent oblast, the details show the parent oblast alert that triggered the watched area's alert state.
Notifications
You receive a push notification whenever one of your watched areas comes under alert. There is no separate push notification when an alert ends; the cleared state is shown on the map and in the Alert Hub. Tap a notification to go straight to the affected area and open its alert in the Hub.
The ✉️ button in Alert settings turns all watched-area notifications on or off.
Voice alerts can read the alert text aloud while the app is open. The voice follows the alert text: Ukrainian, Russian, Hebrew, or Arabic, and English when the alert text is in English.
Alert layer & settings
The general alert layer — every alert, everywhere — can be turned on or off from Layers. Alerts for your watched areas remain on the map regardless of that setting.
In Alert settings, you can choose which countries and threat types to include. Each country has its own on/off switch, and there are five threat types: drone, missile, airstrike, artillery, and unknown. These filters apply to the Alert Hub, the badge on the 🚨 button, and in-app alerts; the map continues to show the underlying alert picture.
These filters do not change push notifications. Push notifications are controlled by which areas you watch and by the ✉️ button.
