Where every fact comes from

How to check a claim

1. Open the map, pick a view and a year, and click a country. The card shows each entry behind its colour, with the source links.
2. Or find the same entry on this page: wars and proxy backing are in sections 2 and 3, bases in section 4.
3. Open the link. If the source does not say what the entry says, the entry is wrong; see limits.

1. Trade

• IMF International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS): exports and imports of goods by partner country, 1995–2025. Processed 2026-10-07. How the figures are combined is on the method page, and the processed file is /data/trade.json.
• Natural Earth admin-0 countries, 1:10m, in the version drawn from Ukraine's point of view (natural-earth-vector). Public domain.

2. Wars

Datasets from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The map draws a conflict in every year in which it was active under UCDP's definition (a state is a party and at least 25 battle-related deaths in the year).

3. Proxy wars: who backs which side

Up to 2017, backing of a side (weapons, funding, training, intelligence, troops) comes from the UCDP External Support dataset above. That dataset has not been extended past 2017, so for later years the backing shown on the map comes only from the hand-built list below. It is shorter than a dataset would be, and every row has its sources. A conflict that is not on this list can still have outside backers.

4. Military bases

There is no single open list of foreign bases. Each entry below was put together from the sources linked on its row. Confidence says how well the sources support it: high = official or multiple independent sources; medium = one good source, or sources that disagree on details; low = credible reporting without official confirmation. A "base" is a distinct installation; a "shared or leased facility" is access to a host's installation; "forces stationed" is a deployment without a distinct base. Only the states in the map's selector are covered.

Limits

• UCDP counts conflicts with at least 25 battle-related deaths in a year, so smaller violence is not on the map, and its figures are revised as better information arrives.
• Where a conflict is fought is the country UCDP lists for it. UCDP lists only Israel for the Israel–Hamas conflict, so Gaza and the West Bank are not coloured separately. Borders are explained on the method page.
• UCDP's side names are kept as published and can differ from how a government is usually described; the UCDP page for each conflict is the reference.
• Backing of sides after 2017 comes from a hand-built list and is shorter than the dataset it follows. It does not yet cover the wars of the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya), and it leaves out support that is only alleged or denied. A conflict without an entry can still have outside backers.
• The base list covers only the states in the map's selector and only entries that could be sourced. A missing base is not proof there is none. Where sources only document part of a period (for example Saudi forces in Yemen, 2015 to 2019), the row stops where the sources stop.
• Links point to the publisher's page as it was when the entry was written. If one has moved, the title and publisher on the row are enough to find it again.