Talk:Russian invasion of Ukraine

Link to closed and archived RfC: Should the individual arms supplying countries be added to the infobox?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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(The heading above is a link to the archived RFC as it is significant and I'm assuming this will be discussed more while not cluttering the talk page with a 29 page discussion Phiarc (talk) 08:07, 7 March 2022 (UTC))

Same link: Should the individual arms supplying countries be added to the infobox? --N8_wilson 12:19, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Image of killed civilian

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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@Hcoder3104 removed this image because Disturbing image, @Super Dromaeosaurus reverted because WP:NOTCENSORED. another reason must be given for the removal of this image. I'm not sure that the image increases our understanding of the invasion, but my main concern here is with source and privacy. The image has been uploaded on Facebook by the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs without providing information about the photographer, the subject and the context (they claim it's Kyinka or Pavlinka near Chernihiv). We should remove contentious material about living or recently dead people that is poorly sourced as per WP:GRAPEVINE and WP:BDP, and we should be extra cautious in case of WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE: the image could be a fake and, if it is genuine, publishing it might show lack of respect for the deceased and his loved ones. The image is not indispensable for the article and I suggest we remove it. P.S. the image is now also in Russian war crimes and in War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:52, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

• Remove I don't see that its inclusion is IAW WP:IMGCONTENT and that it particularly increase[s] readers' understanding of the article's subject matter. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:29, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep Much like most other article space images, this image is a window into viscerally understanding the meaning of the text next to it. If you find the image disturbing, that's good because war is disturbing, and this image serves to convey that reality. Not to mention that Wikipedia:Content disclaimer applies. I also don't agree with the privacy argument. The subject is not readily identifiable from the image as they are lying face down; thus there are no privacy concerns from where I'm standing. We regularly feature images of identifiable people who aren't public figures, for example, see human, so this argument does not hold water for me. Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs is a reliable primary source in this case, so I do not see the concern that this is fake. I obviously understand that Ukraine is engaging in a propaganda war, but there is every indication that civilians are indeed being killed, so this image fits what we know from corroborating reports.
  In summary, in my estimation the image serves an encyclopedic purpose in demonstrating the reality of the war which this article covers. Melmann 08:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  "Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs is a reliable primary source"... are you basing this on anything other than that you personally support Ukraine in this conflict and therefore believe with utmost faith and sincerity that Ukraine could not possibly be producing propaganda that works in their favor and to the detriment of their enemy? หมีขั้วโลก (talk) 14:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• Remove poorly sourced, we know very little information about this photo Ilenart626 (talk)
• Keep - Why should we devoid the horrors of war in an article related to a war? Per Melmann. There are more images and videos related to the war circulating around the internet that are far more disturbing than the image shown (i.e. people burnt to crisps / brains, guts, everything). Giving readers a taste of the reality of war invokes a stronger perception and concept regarding the importance of avoiding one in a pretty raw fashion. The image doesn't show or hint the actual identity of the person killed, that's another reason. PenangLion (talk) 10:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep Wasn't this already answered with FAQ #1? It was also discussed here. Beyond that the new course of the war has increasingly been defined by attacks on civilian targets, such being the case from an informational standpoint the image is just as important if not more important than the image of burnt out Russian tanks in Bucha. This is what the war looks like. I'm not saying that we make this in to a gore thread, but Russia is currently carpet bombing Mariupol, which has mass graves and dead bodies in the street, this is the war. It's worth noting that pages about similar conflicts such as the First Chechen War also feature graphic images, the First Chechen War page having an image of civilians in a mass grave, and dead civilians in the back of a truck. Alcibiades979 (talk) 11:32, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Keep. The photo is not 'disturbing' (as for example this from an identical reality to that of the indiscriminate mass bombing of another country we see now with Ukraine. It is moderate, objective, an obvious reality of what war does, without making viewers nauseous by exposing them to a brutal goriness few of us can watch without feeling unhinged.Nishidani (talk) 11:46, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment My !vote to remove (above) was not because the image was too confrontational but that it did not increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter (per WP:IMGCONTENT). If anything, an image sufficient to increase the readers understanding would be more confrontational. If the present image doesn't do what it should, it should be removed or replaced with one that does (IAW policy). Cinderella157 (talk) 13:00, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

• Keep - Ditto Melmann. Recall photos on World War Two, the Korean War, the Rape of Nanking and so forth; so long as it is relevant, factual, and relatively informational, I'm fine with keeping. Obviously balanced writing is necessary, and gorification ought to be avoided, but I find no issue with this specific photo. Augend (drop a line) 17:19, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

• Remove - content from a self-published source that's currently involved in an information war. A similar image verified and published by an independent source would be much more inline with WP standards. Aside: the acceptable nature of the content shouldn't be used as an argument to override or sidestep sourcing and privacy concerns. --N8_wilson 22:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep because this definitely "increase[s] readers' understanding of the article's subject matter". That was already decided in previous discussions (link by Alcibiades979). There is no copyright issues if I understand correctly or anything problematic per policy with this image. My very best wishes (talk) 00:39, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep Images of the exteriors of shelled apartment buildings are commonplace. Cinderella157 argues that this particular photo does not "increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter", but I disagree. This photo of the interior of an apartment where someone was killed at home significantly increased my own understanding, and when I see exterior views of blasted apartment buildings in the future, I will have a much better understanding what the people who lived in those buildings suffered, and the horrors that could be seen inside those shattered apartments if a photographer entered those devastated places. Cullen328 (talk) 00:55, 24 March 20y 22 (UTC)
• Keep (unless better alternative found) - As far as I'm concerned, the focus of this RfC is not about it being disturbing (though the edit war was about that), it's about whether the source is reliable. However, I see no reason to even suspect that the source has fabricated the image in any way, as there seems to be no need to do so. Suspecting this image as fabricated seems akin to suspecting the US of faking the moon landing-- it's literally easier to get the real thing than to fake it. Lack of photographer credit means little during war time, and the source is an official source even if it uses facebook. I do see the arguments made above that a better representational image might be found elsewhere, (which might be even more disturbing that this one) and I would support replacing this image with such an image if found and sourced... but I also have no objections to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs' facebook page being a source. Fieari (talk) 01:54, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Question This image appears in the section "War crimes:Attributed to Russian authorities and forces". How does this image of a dead man contribute to our understanding of war crimes attributed to the Russians? There is nothing that would indicate this death actually results from a war crime? On the otherhand, deliberately targeting a well marked hospital is pretty clearly a war crime. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah. I think this is where I fall. I agree the image could be suitable for placement in the article at an appropriate part of the prose, but it's unclear how it relates to "war crimes by Russian authorities". Unless someone can clearly explain how this image depicts a war crime, its placement doesn't seem relevant in that section. The particular contents of the image (i.e. whether it contains a body) doesn't seem too relevant. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  Laws of war generally distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate targets. The target of the attack must be a legitimate military target, and the damage to civilians must be proportional to the military objective that the attack attempts to achieve. Although I am under no illusion that a bunch of volunteer editors can meaningfully adjudicate whether a war crime has occurred based on one image, if we just take it on face value, we have an image shared by a legitimate government source accusing the Russian military of killing this civilian, with the image showing a civilian who appears to have been killed by military action while in a civilian residence, which is unlikely to be a legitimate military target. Further to this, we know from WP:RS reporting that scenarios similar to what this image purports to represent are indeed occurring.
  Of course, there could be further context we are not privy to, such as this civilian opening fire on Russian troops, or providing material support to the Ukrainian military, which could make them a legitimate target, but the preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that this image depicts a war crime against the civilian population of Ukraine. Melmann 12:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Bodies of some of the hundreds of Vietnamese villagers who were killed by U.S. soldiers during the My Lai Massacre. This is a compelling image

Civilian deaths are an inevitable and unfortunate consequence of war - being just too close to a legitimate target in the wrong place at the wrong time. The image of itself does not rise to depicting a war crime rather than an unfortunate event. I am not judging the act but the efficacy of the image to depict what it is supposedly intended to do per image policy. There are probably more confronting images that better support an understanding of the subject section. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC) See an example of a compelling image. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Borderline Keep I feel that WP:NOTCENSORED gets unfair weight in these discussions, being used in the sense that the content should be included because not doing so would be censorship. We should really pay more attention to WP:OM, and in particular WP:GRATUITOUS. As this policy says "Images containing offensive material that is extraneous, unnecessary, irrelevant, or gratuitous are not preferred over non-offensive ones in the name of opposing censorship." and goes on to say (my bold) "According to the Wikimedia Foundation, controversial images should follow the principle of 'least astonishment'; that is, we should choose images that respect the conventional expectations of readers for a given topic as much as possible without sacrificing the quality of the article." There is a point at which images become too gratuitous, and I feel that this image is probably somewhere around that limit.Mozzie (talk) 09:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  I would tend to disagree that this image is offensive to an average reader. Obviously, the level of offence is highly cultural, but this image could have easily been a still from any number of police procedural dramas or action films, readily shown during the daytime in most Anglophone countries. The only meaningful difference between this and the procedural drama example is that we know for a fact that this image is real, while images from those dramas we know to be staged. This image does not show gratuitous violence, beyond from what is required to demonstrate the encyclopedic point in question. There are no internal organs strewn about, the victim is not beheaded, there isn't even a meaningful amount of blood on display. If anything, this is the mildest photo that can convincingly demonstrate the reality of death of civilian population of Ukraine. I understand your point, and I do agree to a point. I would not support ISIS beheading videos being the first thing the reader lands on when reading the page ISIS, but in this case, I think we are a long way off from getting the balance wrong.
  I can understand how a reader might find the image distressing, but the topic of civilian death in a war is highly distressing on its own, and this image demonstrates the reality of it without displaying needlessly unmerited violence. Melmann 12:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Keep I remember switching on the News after school as a four year-old during the Vietnam War. Images such as this (viewer discretion!) were common. No one had to tell me war was Disturbing while putting their own spin on "the facts" - a picture is worth a thousand words. Bosley John Bosley (talk) 12:29, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep It is an article on a war, some disturbing images are expected, as the war is itself a disturbing event. Wikisaurus (talk) 17:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep Per reasons given above.--Surv1v4l1st ^{╠Talk║Contribs╣} 23:42, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Question Can anybody tell me how this image is clearly about war crimes? Cinderella157 (talk) 11:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'm inclined to agree. Single incidence civilian deaths with no supporting evidence can't be automatically attributed as war crimes. Also any claim in that direction would need to verify three things: that the assailant was a combatant (in legal terms) and that the victim was a non-combatant, and that the attack by a combatant against a non-combatant was intentional. All of these things are extremely difficult to verify. All may not be as it seems, especially in a situation where it is alleged there is a widespread resistance movement within the civilian population. หมีขั้วโลก (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• Remove I have seen much worse in relation even to this war, and the person actually looks quite peaceful and 'undamaged', but the relatively acceptable nature of the content shouldn't be used as an argument to override or sidestep sourcing and privacy concerns., nor that we actually have no idea what the picture depicts and whether it does or does not illustrate anything specific about this war, nor about war crimes. It reitetrates the obvious, that people die in war, and violent death never looks pretty. Pincrete (talk) 07:32, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
• Statistics. In terms of opinions for consensus purposes only there appear to be 12 Keeps and 4 Deletes, which is at about 3-to-1. Wikipedia policy is generally to be against censorship, and consensus should decide if the image is useful to the article as a whole on its own merits. ErnestKrause (talk) 23:46, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I would make it 5 to remove. However, those arguments are being made mainly on the source of the image and policy - whether the image is adequate to support the accompanying text. They are not being made for reasons of censoring. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:47, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• Remove I have no issue of citing materials from verified social media accounts of government agencies or reputed individuals. My issue is the appeal to sensation instead of providing substantial context to the alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops. It's fair that we employ much stricter criteria when deciding what we should include in such article with high traffic because of the ongoing military campaign. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 02:42, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Use of the term "falsely accused"

I wrote this in my editsum, but whilst the RS does use the word "falsely accused" and the factual basis of the term is relatively well-established, the problem is that the term "falsely accused" is more partisan and accusatory than, for instance, "accused without basis". See WP:PARTISAN -

reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective.

The truth is that the language used seems, at least from a semantical standpoint, to be potentially problematic. Augend (drop a line) 17:42, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

In essence, we go with the language RS use. But without knowing what you are talking about its hard to say if the use of false is valid. Slatersteven (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm thinking here: "Russian president Vladimir Putin espoused irredentist views, questioned Ukraine's right to statehood, and falsely accused Ukraine of being dominated by neo-Nazis who persecute the Russian-speaking minority." As a side note I agree with the usage of "falsely accused" in this case. Alcibiades979 (talk) 19:08, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I understand your issue Augend and agree with you that the usage of the term "falsely accused" is problematic. In my opinion it goes against WP guidelines on balancing our language and keeping it neutral. Maybe note in the sentence who considers it as a false accusation, attribute it. EkoGraf (talk) 21:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion it goes against WP guidelines on balancing our language and keeping it neutral. What kind of WP guidelines are you talking about? Renat 10:31, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

While it is clear that RS almost universally concur that Putin is exaggerating in the extreme, "without basis" does not work because there is a lot of basis for conclusions which are similar to the ones he draws. It is not so much a lack of basis, there are heaps of evidence of unusually pronounced affinities for Nazism throughout the record of Ukraine's various social phenomena. It is just that Putin makes a wild leap from that basis to a conclusion, framed here as Nazi "dominance", which lacks a sufficent basis to support his extreme conclusion and remedies. It is confusing though to state "without basis" which may be technically correct regarding the Putin conclusions because there is nevertheless a lot of basis for relatively non-controversial conclusions which lead towards, but do not arrive, at Putin's endpoint conclusion. Therefore, while supporting the spirt of the proposal "without basis", I do not support the use of "without basis" as a way out of this conundrum. IMV. Wikidgood (talk) 06:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The above in reply to . Alcibiades979 (talk) as to the edit in his link "I'm thinking..." As stated eslewhere, I believe the lede is problematized more by the inaccurate characterization of Putin's remarks as a problem of Nazi "dominance" than by the characterization of his words as false accusation, although I concur with EkoGraf and others that "falsely accused" fails WP:NPV and 'balance'. There are many accusations floating around which are not necessarily so clearly false, eg., that shelling by UNG into Donbass is excessive, that UNG units such as Azov violate HR conventions, that Russian language-speakers are unduly suppressed by the Ua legislation, that the Party of Regions has been subjected to bullying, that the Odessa fire incident was an outrage raising certain red flags, that the use of the wolfsangel in official regalia is suggestive of inappropriate Nazi affinities, that some of the territorial acquisitions @ Galicia were suspect in the inception, etc etc.

None of these are universally regarded as "false", and they all could be woven together in a general theory of creeping Naziism afflicting Ukraine, which a significant plurality of commentators may believe. (I don't, by the way.) The point is that "falsely accused Ukraine of being dominated by neo-Nazis" is just not a great piece of writing, it looks like writing-by-committee and we may be stuck with it.

If there is a way out, IMO, it would be to start with revisions that state more precisely it is that Putin does and does not say. We can then more readily determine the proper way to qualify his contentions. That would require quite a bit of thought, and, even if someone devoted some time to reformulation of that phrase, there would then be the task of winning support/consensus. It is not unlikely then that there debate will just continue around how to qualify what I believe to be the flawed subject of the qualifier. Thus is the nature of collective encyclopeiation, alas. Wikidgood (talk) 06:35, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I totally agree. Anyone who reads the article, or listens to the news, knows that Putin is lying every time he opens his mouth. However, using a finger-pointing term like "falsely" to hammer home the point here is both redundant and unencyclopaedic. But, there's already been a similar discussion some while back, and the outcome was to keep the term, so good luck with trying to get it removed or changed HieronymousCrowley (talk) 08:07, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

However, using a finger-pointing term like "falsely" to hammer home the point here is both redundant and unencyclopaedic. Why do you think so? And what is your policy based argument? Renat 10:39, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree with User:Augend. I think the use of "falsely" is biased and non-nuetral. Shorouq★The★Super★ninja2 (talk) 10:24, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

So you're adding your support to Augend? EEng 13:21, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment It is one thing to be quoting a source (directly or indirectly using non-neutral terms, it is quite another to be writing in non-neutral terms in WP's voice. The lead is a summary of the body. We might state that the allegations are false in the summary if this represents the consensus of opinion in good quality, independent reliable sources. Even then, we should (probably) not be saying this in a WP voice. The body of the text should be showing us that there is such a consensus to show that the allegation can be considered false. We are putting the "falsely accused" in a WP voice before the cart ... analysts have described Putin's rhetoric as greatly exaggerating the influence .... Of the two news sources cited to support this, one doesn't appear to be referring to the opinion of anybody particularly and the second refers to a representatives of an American expatriate Ukranian organisation, an American Jewish organisation and a former American ambassador to Russia. I think that the description of "analysts" is being a little free with the truth. Now, I'm not saying that the allegations are true but it does appear to me that we are probably being a little free with what should be said in a WP voice and WP:NPOV. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:51, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

As a reminder, WP:NPOV does not mean we must be kind or take a middle-ground stance. It means we must report according to what the sources say. In this case, all reliable sources are unanimous that this is a false accusation. There are no reliable sources that say otherwise. This is exactly the time to use wikivoice. Fieari (talk) 04:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I have not said that we couldn't use WP voice but that we haven't gone about things the right way by which we could use WP voice. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

As said above, even though they are considered RS by Wikipedia, they are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective, so this has to be taken into account. Agree with Cinderella157, a right way needs to be found to convey the information in WP's voice. EkoGraf (talk) 09:39, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I guess I have an issue with giving credence in the lede to a conspiracy theory that is currently being used to justify a war. Multiple RS's refer to these allegations as false. I'd also take it a step further and say that I think extra caution needs to be taken in this instance since the accusation is that one of the world's two Jewish heads of state is actually a nazi who is committing genocide against Christians. This is clearly extremely problematic, and the accusation is deeply anti-semitic. Putin's accusation itself is a text book example of WP:NAZI: "That Jews are the true perpetrators of Nazism, or hold an ideology that is worse or morally equivalent." As far as reliable sources go:

• NewYorkTimes: "Neo-Nazis have been a recurring character in Russian propaganda campaigns for years, used to falsely justify military action against Ukraine in what Russian officials have called “denazification.”"
• CBS: "Putin built a false premise for a war against "Nazis" in Ukraine"
• CNN: "The false accusations of Nazism and genocide from Putin and his aides against the Zelensky government have drawn outrage."
• NBC: "Putin has long sought to falsely paint Ukraine as a Nazi hotbed, which is a particularly jarring accusation given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost three family members in the Holocaust."
• WallStreetJournal: "The references to Nazi Germany come against the backdrop of Russia falsely alleging that the Ukrainian government is run by neo-Nazis and that one of the aims of its war is to “de-Nazify” the country"
• Politico: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish himself and whom Russian President Vladimir Putin has cynically and falsely called a Nazi"

This is what the sources say, and what is in common usage, and for good reason. Alcibiades979 (talk) 10:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Nobody here is advocating for the truth of Putin's statements, nor do we support the use of these mistruths in the advancement of an aggressive and damaging warmaking policy. That said, I also do not believe Wikipedia ought to be used for sending political messaging; the outrageous nature of the comments is not justification for our supposed burden to right great wrongs. Augend (drop a line) 15:59, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Calling false accusations false is not political messaging; it is a factual statement, and being mealy-mouthed about it would be false balance. To quote our policy on NPOV: we...describe these ideas in their proper context concerning established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world. The proper context of these accusations is that they're false, which you don't dispute, and it's not a NPOV violation to describe them as such. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:14, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Let me rephrase. The logic behind @Alcibiades979's post implies that the nefarious nature of the commentary somehow emburdens us to emphasize the lack of truthfulness or otherwise highlight the falsehood of the commentary. This is not true. Whatever the purpose of Putin's comments are, we are not obligated to act any differently because of them.

Within the context of WP:IMPARTIAL, [t]he tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Forgive my pedantry, but the use of the term here is explicitly rejecting a point-of-view. Now- while the existing terminology "falsely accused" may be fine within the current context, the question ought to be framed more so as whether an alternate phrasing may be better. I am of the opinion that the use of a more neutral term, incorporating such language as "without evidence" or "without basis" would be more suitable. Augend (drop a line) 16:35, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

WP:IMPARTIAL is incorrect in this instance specifically because WP:NPOV refers specifically to reliable sources. Vladimir Putin is not a reliable source on nazism in general, or nazism in Ukraine in particular, nor is it credible to state that he is. We have a number of Reliable Sources in this thread, all of which refer to the claims as being false, in fact I chose the sources I did because they mirror the article's terminology almost exactly: "false accusations". As far as I can tell there is no debate that the accusations are false. We should follow the Reliable Sources. What's more is that we as edittors are not "neutral", in the sense that we give false balance, rather, we are neutral in our reporting and representation of Reliable Sources, which may lead to what maybe construed as "not neutral content" there is nothing wrong with this as long as we are fairly representing the Reliable Sources, which we are. In short, there's no WP:OR there's no going out on a limb, the article is just following Reliable Sources to the letter. For instance with the Gleiwitz incident the article simply states that it was a false flag attack, not that "Germany invaded Poland because it claimed that Poland attacked a german radio tower." Alcibiades979 (talk) 18:55, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Breaking this down...

Vladimir Putin is not a reliable source on nazism in general, or nazism in Ukraine in particular - nobody said he is. I'm pretty sure nobody in this thread has ever claimed Putin's words have any truth value. That said, I am challenging the wording because it (a) provides, at least, the presentation of an NPOV violation & (b) may or may not be a leap of encyclopedic register. For instance, can you give me a single difference between my suggested wording and the extant wording? Why must we use the word "falsely" exactly?

We should follow the Reliable Sources - "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective" - we do not, and indeed, probably should not, follow RS' semantics choices verbatim.

For instance with the Gleiwitz incident the article simply states that it was a false flag attack, not that "Germany invaded Poland because it claimed that Poland attacked a german radio tower." - yes, but the term false in that context is a false flag (a well-established term) - it alone is an incomplete clause. It would obviously be appropriate for use in that context. If you are suggesting we call Russia's invasion a false-flag, that is a separate discussion.

Finally, there is considerable historical consensus based on a wealth and breadth of knowledge on the topic since WWII - unlike this situation, where this is still a considerable degree of uncertainty (if anything, just because of how vaguely worded the subsequent clause is and the relative novelty of the entire phenomenon). Hence I do not believe it would be problematic to err on the side of caution (see [a]). Augend (drop a line) 05:03, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

"unlike this situation, where this is still a considerable degree of uncertainty" Where is the uncertainty? Where are the sources that state then that the Ukrainian government is dominated by nazis? I found and listed a number of sources stating that the accusation is false. Do you have sources that say that Volodomyr Zelenskyy is a nazi? Otherwise to me it is exactly the same as the Gleiwitz incident, and if we get rid of the exact phrasing and just allow it to be RSs that refute the statement that Ukraine is a neo-nazi state then I can easily produce dozens of RSs which state that it is false. The middle ground is that the jewish president of Ukraine is not a nazi, that his government is not nazi and that he's not perpetrating genocide; that is the middle of the road NPOV statement. Alcibiades979 (talk) 14:11, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

OK how about "incorrectly accused", is that better? We reflct what RS say, so we can't imply this is not incorrect or false.. Slatersteven (talk) 11:01, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Do we have RS that use "incorrectly"? Renat 10:46, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• FYI, this was already discussed at Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine/Archive 8#NPOV in the lead section? Putin "falsely" accused Ukraine of being dominated by Nazis. I'm generally very cautious about Wikipedia using judgemental terms in wikivoice, and have argued very strongly against this where I feel the sources are more cautious/hedged than our article voice. However, in this case I think "falsely" is clearly vindicated by the sources (as Alcibiades979 helpfully shows above). As it's factually true (Putin's claim is baseless and described as false) I think there's no need to qualify, attribute or water down this wording. In the previous discussion I also noted that MOS:WEASEL encourages editors to use their discretion with potentially opinion-sounding terms in the lead and in topic sentences at the start of paragraphs, as sometimes words which sound opinionated best and most accurately reflect the sources which are later expounded on the article body/following sentences, which I believe is that case here. That said, I didn't particularly mind Augend's suggested wording "without basis" – but I think the rationale for change, that there's a neutrality issue, is wrong. Jr8825 • Talk 11:31, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  "We will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine" is not a factual statement which can be assessed in terms of true or false, but a declaration of intent hinting at regime change, plus an expressive statement aimed at escalating the conflict. Saying that it is "false" in the lead section is a way of taking a clear stance from the very start. Of course we should debunk false information, as we are now trying to do decently in the "Russian accusations and demands" section; and of course Ukraine is not run by fascists. But claiming that the statement "we come to wipe out the fascists" is false, without basis, etc., is just getting caught in the dumb talk of propaganda war. And yes, there are fascists on the ground in Ukraine, they’ve been responsible for atrocities, and yes the members of the Russian community may reasonably think that they’ve been subjected to systematic discrimination based on language and nationality. I think that our RS are much more reliable for facts than for value judgments. Echoing them doesn’t bring us closer to peace nor to truth. I’d remove the "falsely" adverb from the lead. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:23, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I also came here specifically to ask for the removal of falsely in this context. Falsely somewhat implies that there is certainty that those accusations are false. Accused itself, however, do not carry the connotation that the accusations are true. My suggestion is to use allegedly. ... accused Ukraine of being dominated by neo-Nazis who allegedly persecute the Russian-speaking minority. In this way, we still play down the possibility of persecution of Russian-speaking minorities, while do not dismiss whether some neo-Nazis are active in Ukraine right away. 88.243.148.71 (talk) 22:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

"Falsely somewhat implies that there is certainty that those accusations are false" – that's precisely why "false" is appropriate here. There is no reasonable doubt that Putin's accusation that Ukraine is run by Nazis committing genocide against Russian speakers is false. The sources are unanimous and express certainty. Jr8825 • Talk 13:09, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

The problem with the sources is that they are all USA sources. Using the words of the press of a country heavily invested with one side verbatim is not constructive. Moreover, we have a seven paragraphs of Neo-Nazism#Ukraine and Racism_in_Ukraine mentions neo-Nazism three times. People who use wikipedia as their primary news source and who don't know anything about the conflict would probably think that there is no shred of evidence that there are any neo-Nazis in Ukraine, after reading this sentence. 88.243.148.71 (talk) 22:55, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Reliable Sources do not cease to be Reliable just because they are American. Fieari (talk) 23:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

If wikipedia is to copy the US media verbatim, we can redirect this page to New York Times and all of us can call it a day. Or, we can use allegedly which is only slightly less sure than falsely.176.89.106.252 (talk) 10:47, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Agree with IP. Shorouq★The★Super★ninja2 (talk) 10:21, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• The BBC: The claim of Nazis and genocide in Ukraine was also a fiction. [1]
• The Guardian: Putin’s claim that Russia is invading Ukraine to denazify it is therefore absurd on its face [2]
• Der Spiegel: Just as they now provided false pretexts for the invasion of Ukraine? [3]

This is not a US-exclusive phenomenon. To qualify this as anything less than false feels like false balance, at best. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:39, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I can find several BBC videos on short notice stating some neo-Nazi groups freely act on their own, totally above the law. At least one such video suggested that the previous ministry of interior, Avakov, is affiliated with such groups. So, stating "false accusation" implies that neo-Nazism has no place in Ukraine. We know that overwhelming majority of scholars do not believe neo-Nazism do not justify an invasion but stating that all neo-Nazi accusations are false is not something we should do here. It doesn't even make sense, considering the fact that just next to the "falsely accused", neo-Nazism in Ukraine and Russophobia are linked right there.

Also, about WP:NPOV and specifically about false balance, "the minority view" is assumed as the minority view among the western readers. The countries that abstained in the UN GA collectively hosts about half the world. Offering the Western media verbatim here is an indirect show of western supremacy.

I want to reiterate my suggestion: ... accused Ukraine of being dominated by neo-Nazis who allegedly persecute the Russian-speaking minority. This way, we do not comment on the accusations about neo-Nazis but we still play down whether these neo-Nazis prosecute Russian speaking minority. 88.243.148.71 (talk) 01:02, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Also, I think we are misusing NPOV and false balance. They are more applicable on issues that are exhaustively discussed on a scholarly level, such as Armenian Genocide. This is why WWII analogies do not work as well. Here, we use the language appropriate to use after a military tribunal, for an ongoing conflict. As things stand, someone who is sceptical about the mainstream western views on this conflict would not keep reading this article because he/she would think this article is western propaganda and why shouldn't they if we copy the western media verbatim? 88.243.148.71 (talk) 01:26, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

The actual claim as written in the article is Putin falsely accused Ukrainian society and government of being dominated by neo-Nazism. Your statement that " stating "false accusation" implies that neo-Nazism has no place in Ukraine" is nonsense; the article says or implies nothing of the sort. Your suggestion would have us leave the statement that Ukraine is "dominated by neo-Nazism" unchallenged, only qualifying the persecution bit. "Accuse without basis" and "falsely accuse" are two (somewhat-)reasonable ways to frame this, but your suggestion is a complete non-starter. (Also, glad to see the goalposts have moved from "US" to "western"; not particularly unexpected.) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 01:43, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but the claim is wrong: Putin never said "Ukrainian society and government [are] dominated by neo-Nazim". This is a point I've raised in an earlier discussion with no avail, yet I think it's relevant. We have the full text translation of the 24 February address on Ukraine by Putin (which the Russian Federation also submitted to the UN as official justification of war). It is here (Bloomberg) and here (TASS). We also have en extensive excerpt in the New York Times, here. This is what he actually said about nazism, verbatim: "Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine"; "we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine"; "Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine". These are declarations of intent, policy objectives, political judgments and predictive statements - not mere statements of fact, which could be true or false, like "Ukrainian society and government [are] dominated by neo-Nazim". This is a ridiculous statement which Putin never pronounced, and by labelling it as "false" we are getting trapped in war propaganda. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 02:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree. "Ukrainian society and government [is] dominated by neo-Nazism" is a fair interpretation of "Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine". If this were clearly a predictive statement, as you seem to suggest, then that would be something like "tomorrow's neo-Nazis". The very next line is "You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people." That's present tense, not future. But more to the point, this is why we use secondary sources, rather than the primary source of the text of Putin's speech. And the secondary sources about this are pretty conclusive. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 02:51, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly.Gitz: "Putin never sai..." This struck me as creative writing and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Where did Putin ever use the term "доминирует" (dominated) to characterize his take on the neo-Nazism allegations regarding Ukraine. The encyclopedic requirement of reflecting RS should use the precise wording as the default and not reframe with connotations not in the original. Wikidgood (talk) 05:43, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Re: [your] statement that " stating "false accusation" implies that neo-Nazism has no place in Ukraine" is nonsense; the article says or implies nothing of the sort - I presume you are referring to the extant Wikipedia article? Clarification here. Augend (drop a line) 04:51, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps there's an alternate rationale for the change? Augend (drop a line) 04:53, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

There is academic consensus that Putin's claims about genocide, Nazism etc are false. See https://jewishjournal.com/news/worldwide/345515/statement-on-the-war-in-ukraine-by-scholars-of-genocide-nazism-and-world-war-ii/. The statement was signed by 309 scholars of genocide and Nazism. Summary of the statement is in the body of this article. See 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Russian accusations and demands. So the body supports the word "falsely" in the lead. Renat 10:00, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, what the letter states is: This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive ... Cinderella157 (talk) 11:30, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

@Cinderella157 wait-wait. Forget the letter. It looks like we need to discuss this issue step by step. Let's start over. Do you agree that we have reliable, published sources that use the word "false" when they describe Putin's claims about genocide and Nazism in Ukraine? Renat 12:28, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

We have a lot of news sources expressing in their own voice the opinion that the claims are false. But per WP:NEWSORG, these sources are not a WP:RS for such opinion. Few of them give attributed comments and where they do, few of these attributed commentators rise to being "recognised experts". Whether the attributed comments of recognised experts explicitly describe the claims as "false" (and this is a consensus among them) is ultimately is a tenuous assertion. The attributed comments (as in the letter) tend to be more circumspect. The sources that are quoted in the body of the article that are intended to support the assertion of "false" are not, to my mind, particularly credible and paints the term "experts" with too broad a brush. WP is not a mirror of the opinions of the press. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:18, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

WP:NEWSORG says "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (invited op-eds and letters to the editor from notable figures) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." This part of the guideline talks about materials from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/, https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/commentisfree , https://www.theage.com.au/opinion and https://www.aljazeera.com/opinion/. But in this case our content is supported by factual content, not opinion. And not only from news sources, but also from subject-matter experts. Renat 12:23, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author [emphasis added]. Per WP:RSPRIMARY, All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors. WP:RSPRIMARY gives more cautions. We are lacking secondary sources on this issue. "Facts" are not opinion or conclusions and subject-matter experts must be attributed. But as I said, the news sources paint these with a broad brush. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:44, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

There's a bucket load of reliable secondary sources saying Putin's claim that Ukraine has a genocidal neo-Nazi government is false. I can't help feeling we're overanalysing/overcomplicating things here. It's an obviously false statement, we have many reliable sources emphasising its falsity and no sources dispute the fact that it's false - the only problem would be if we weren't conveying this situation appropriately. Jr8825 • Talk 13:18, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Assuming that the sourcing in the body of the article hasn't substantially changed since I last looked at it, then why aren't we using some of this bucket load of reliable secondary sources that say the claim is "false"? Cinderella157 (talk) 23:28, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Falsely is judgemental, it should just be "Putin accused Ukrainian society and government of being dominated by neo-Nazism and invaded." Or "The pretext of invasion was that the Ukrainian government is led by neo-Nazis and needs to be de-nazified", ect. RomanPope (talk) 00:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• Notification This discussion has been notified at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Use of the term "falsely accused" at Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:07, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Still going on over there. EEng 01:27, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not certain if anything clearer has emerged there? Cinderella157 (talk) 21:57, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Funny how Wikipedia editors are all citing English-speaking, Western-propagandized news sources to call something “false”. If you do more research, using more academically acceptable sources for INTERNATIONAL POLITICS from different non-Western countries (definitely not biased news websites—BBC, The NY Times, and for God’s sake, Business Insider, seriously?) you will realize this is a DEBATABLE topic.

So yes, “falsely” is a biased word, coming from Western propaganda. Chiemvu (talk) 17:37, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

No, it is not. Nor is your assumption that a source is "biased" because it is from a Western news organ valid.50.111.59.42 (talk) 21:35, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

As per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, the BBC & NY Times are both considered generally reliable. There is no consensus on Business Insider. As for only the matter of the predominance of English sources, well this is English Wikipedia. I encourage you to be bold, fix it yourself, & add reliable sources that might be in other languages. Peaceray (talk) 19:41, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Should the invasion have its own sidebar/campaignbox?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The invasion and some of the many articles surrounding it are currently part of Template:Campaignbox Russo-Ukrainian War. As far as I can tell only engagement-related articles seem to mostly use the Russo-Ukrainian war caimpaignbox, while most of the more political-societal and media-focused articles do not, and are not linked in it. Due to the large number (28 "See also" articles and 17 "Main articles") of articles surrounding 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine I'm wondering: Should the invasion have its own sidebar/campaignbox? Phiarc (talk) 16:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. The current crisis has little to do with most of the historical material in the Russo-Ukrainian war box, and there's a lot of material to cover, too much to shoehorn into that box.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:09, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. I would suggest the Template:Campaignbox Russo-Ukrainian War include only the "Prelude" and "Crimea annexation" section links (since there are only half a dozen events regarding those periods), and two general links for the Donbass war and the 2022 invasion. While the Donbass war and the 2022 invasion should have their own infoboxes that would include all of the individual battles. Or, if people won't separate, at the very least follow this format Template:Campaignbox War in Afghanistan (2001–2021). EkoGraf (talk) 21:27, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. There are enough subsidiary article specific to the invasion to warrant this. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:25, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't know if this is against some WP guideline or not, but I created a rough version of Template:Sidebar 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine while this RfC is running, perhaps consider it a discussion aid or something like that. Contrast with Template:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has 36 categories I'm thinking the sidebar should be more focused, e.g. instead of containing every battle article, just the offensives. It would not be useful to simply duplicate the navbox, but vertically. Navbox for completeness, sidebar for overview, basically. Phiarc (talk) 15:24, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• I've divided and replaced the articles listed under 2022 invasion with a separate campaignbox. Viewsridge (talk) 19:11, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that what you have done is quite what we are intending (certainly not me). It would be a separate campaign box that only included those links subsequent to or directly preceding the invasion. There would also be a two-way link between it and the main box for the Russo-Ukrainian War. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:29, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

It was reverted fairly quickly (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ACampaignbox_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine&type=revision&diff=1079445056&oldid=1079439359). In any case I agree that we should first establish what the goal is and then do that and not run off immediately changing dozens of articles. Phiarc (talk) 13:17, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, following EkoGraf's proposal – I agree, the present state of this box is absolutely unwieldy. EkoGraf's proposal is the most elegant solution to this problem. Have one 'generalised' campaignbox for the whole war, and two sub-boxes, one for the war in Donbas and one for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Crimea doesn't need its own box. RGloucester — ☎ 14:01, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Agree because the main campaignbox is getting too laggy/crowded, so I would suggest a solution similar to that employed in Template:Campaignbox War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), which is a collection of campaignboxes for separate campaigns that are all embedded into the same campaignbox. This way we can separate the Invasion of the Crimea, the Donbass War, and the 2022 Invasion from each other. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 16:58, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• Moving forward This discussion has gone stale but it appears to me that there is a consensus for this article to have its own campaign box, if not how exactly this would look. I would suggest that someone with a draft just be bold and put it in. My only observation is that we probably don't need an image and certainly not the map again. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:22, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

  @Cinderella157 - I've made one at User:Dunutubble/drafttemplate6. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 23:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

OK Dunutubble, a good start. I would see that the campaign box for here would contain (and duplicate) everything in the Russo-Ukrainian War campaign bow that is in that section headed 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Any other thoughts? Cinderella157 (talk) 01:31, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ukrainian intelligence service denies sharing information of Chinese cyberattack, says they have no evidence of said attack

From the official Twitter account of the Security Service of Ukraine, translated: https://twitter.com/ServiceSsu/status/1509983294334582793

"The SBU did not provide the media with any official information that cyber-attacks from China were allegedly carried out on the eve of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on our military and other resources. The SBU has nothing to do with the findings of The Times. The Security Service of Ukraine does not currently have such data and no investigation is underway."

Chokoladesu (talk) 12:16, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• Anyone have any idea what we're supposed to do with this? EEng 10:05, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

  "Chinese military attackers were also alleged to have conducted a massive cyberwarfare espionage programme on the eve of the invasion, including on nuclear infrastructure, pointing to advanced Chinese knowledge." is written under section Prelude - Escalation.

  Since this was refuted by the Ukrainians themselves, this should be noted, or the sentence could be done away if other editors think it should. In addition, "pointing to advanced Chinese knowledge" is a clear WP:NPOV violation and needs to go.

  On a related note, some experts believe (not weasel-wording here) that actually China took the invasion by surprise. I think a section titled Chinese Reaction, regarding the Chinese reaction as well as standpoint on the invasion can expand on this interesting topic. Chokoladesu (talk) 11:46, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Bulking down the article: Currently over 400Kb in size

This article page is so large it's daunting and it's continuing to grow. Reliable sources are stating to expect the second phase of the Invasion to start within two weeks now that the 'first phase' has come to a completion with Russian troops redeploying away from Kyiv. There are several sections which might be reconsidered as to the best place to keep them on Wikipedia and which sibling articles on Wikipedia might be the best place for moving them. One suggestion is to possibly split or re-allocate the "Legal implications" section with all its subsection to go fully into its sibling articles. All of the potential prosecutions will only take place after the Invasion is completed and it seems unlikely that any Military trials will take place at least until next year, and possibly later than that. For example, the "Nuremburg trials" only took place after the end of WWII, and they are treated as a separate subject. Also, its possible other editors have other suggestions for thinking about bulking down this very large article. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:21, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I think it's rather speculative to predict that prosecutions will only start after the invasion has finished. More significantly, there are multiple steps that are all significant: establishing the investigation (ICC), laying charges, issuing arrest warrants, and then the actual trials. There are no sources pointing to any military trials; there might be military trials, but those are a different topic, not yet documented in en.Wikipedia (military trials have the problem of lower standards of transparency, rights of the defence. There is also the legally innovative aspect of the ICJ regarding the crime of aggression, which ties the legal aspects very closely to the invasion itself.

For the moment, I would suggest first splitting off less central issues, such as Media depictions, Sanctions and ramifications and Reactions.

The Reactions section is really Reactions + Protests. Protests are a form of reaction, but make sense in their own article. Dropping Reactions/Protests to a brief summary here, and making sure any extra material here is integrated into the sub-articles, would seem quite doable. In principle, this is already done, but editors have a tendency to add material directly to the summary here, instead of first adding it to the content in the sub-articles, and then letting the summaries be updated if/when needed.

Of course, Legal implications will probably have to be split off too, with its own overview article, sooner or later. Boud (talk) 18:59, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Boud, If you could choose one or two of those less central issues which you mention, such as Media and Reactions, to integrate them into the sub-articles, then I would try to support your doing this on the main page in order to start to bulk down this article. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:14, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• I'm sure there's stuff that should be trimmed, but I continue to be astounded that, in this day and age, we're still hearing about raw source size as if it matters. EEng 10:21, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

  High-speed internet access is not universal, especially when there's a communication blockade imposed on a geographical region. And that's one of the reasons why war crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine after about 6 weeks have got much more Wikipedia coverage than war crimes in the Tigray War have got in 17 months. Efficient use of computational resources is still justified for many reasons. Boud (talk) 17:23, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. The size of wiki source (the 400K someone cited), the download size of the rendered page, and the length of readable text are completely different things, and only weakly related. If you're worried about download bandwidth then remove all the images, because even one of them uses more bandwidth than all the text put together. "Computational resources" are entirely on the Wikimedia Foundation's servers, and they have said over and over and over that we should not worry about that at all (see WP:PERF). EEng 21:26, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

  Ad hominem is not needed. If you have arguments and evidence, then presenting them would be sufficient, and more appropriate. Editors are one of the groups of people who use Wikipedia. I would be surprised if there were no significant correlation between the wiki source size, the rendered size and the length of readable text, apart from images. It's also not strictly true that the computational resources are all on the WMF servers' side: lightweight browsers will ignore images and javascript and minimise CPU usage, while heavy browsers can consume a lot of CPU and RAM locally. WP:PEIS has been a practical problem for a few COVID-19 pandemic pages; the main page hit that several times, if I remember correctly. There's no need to wait until we hit WP:PEIS here. Boud (talk) 00:23, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

  • I would be surprised if there were no significant correlation – I didn't say there's no significant correlation; I said the correlation is weak, and it is. (Significant doesn't mean strong.) Anyway, why waste time trying to reason from something irrelevant (wikisource size) when you could just talk about something relevant, or at least closer to what's relevant, which is word count? (Although, as noted elsewhere, people don't read from top to bottom anyway, so that's no all that relevant either. But at least it's better.)
  • apart from images ... lightweight browsers will ignore images and javascript and minimise CPU usage – Once you ignore those, you've cut bandwidth usage and cycles by 95%. People who need to do that will do that. Great! But that's not enough for you? You now want to cut the remaining 5% in half as well?
  • Editors are one of the groups of people who use Wikipedia – If by this you're suggesting that total source length might be a problem for someone editing: that's what section edits are for.
  • There's no need to wait until we hit WP:PEIS here – Yeah, actually, there is, because otherwise you're wasting time, and distorting article structure and content, in order to prevent something which (a) might not happen anyway, and (b) is easily handled when it happens.

  EEng 00:27, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia policy is to try to keep its articles to within a reasonable reading time. The current read time for the article takes over 45 minutes if a reader tries to do a top-to-bottom reading of the article as a whole, which is above expected article reading time length at Wikipedia. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:14, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

  In 20 years I'm not sure I've ever read a non-stub article from top to bottom. No one does. That's a very poor criterion. EEng 21:26, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• It would be a service to all readers to move the three or four largest sections to sub-articles and leave a succinct summary of each in this article. That way the reader can get an overview of the topic within a reasonable time reading top to bottom. If they want to dive in for more details about those sections, they can. In addition, bandwidth considerations are eternal. Many people are on slow or over-burdened networks. These are two good reasons. Anyone willing should just proceed. Jehochman ^Talk 17:58, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• Jehochman, Boud has already done the section on 'Reactions', and possibly you could try to do this for some of the remaining sections still to be done for the 'Media' section or for the 'Sanctions' section. Either or both of the section would bulk down the article significantly. Any thoughts? ErnestKrause (talk) 14:26, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• Boud, It looks like Jehochman is supporting your suggestion for doing all 3 sections of "Media", "Sanctions", and "Reactions", which I think means that he and I will support your going forward with the merges and deletions whenever its convenient for you. ErnestKrause (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
  • @ErnestKrause and Jehochman: I wasn't actually volunteering to do the work... Anyway, Reactions is done.  Done Feel free to double-check and clean up. General comments: NATO and EU reactions to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine appears to be notable enough to be its own article, and will quite likely be worth either developing or merging into "X-Y relations" articles - after all, the result of the invasion will quite likely result in Ukraine being either formally in NATO or de facto in NATO with UA's proposed "security guarantees" from a few mostly NATO member states, and membership of the EU is now quite likely once the invasion is over; 2022 protests in Russian-occupied Ukraine was not mentioned here, despite the obvious significance of protests in RU-occupied parts of UA; there were quite a few bits of redundant info, but some non-redundant sentences; I took the summaries essentially from the individual sub-pages, so as not to override (or add too much to) summary work done in the individual pages.
    Extracting some of the more significant intergovernmental organisational reactions (suspension/exclusion/self-exclusion from the Council of Europe; suspension from UNHRC) would be justified restoring here briefly as some of the more notable reactions, but better first try doing summaries in the individual pages. Government and intergovernmental reactions to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, based on its summary/WP:LEAD at the top and the first sections looks mostly like a long list of blabla rhetoric by politicians, and the institutional reactions of significance are hidden lower down. Being thrown out of an institution is more significant than having critical comments stated. Anyway, the split is done so summaries should be a bit easier to handle now. Boud (talk) 23:56, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• Boud, Support for the edits on splitting Reactions. I have started to expand on the lead section there. If you can look at the next one of the two remaining sections such as Media or Sanctions, then both Jehochman and I can continue to support, and I will offer to expand on the lead sections on any of the articles which you feel need to be split. That saved about 40Kb in downsizing the article which can be followed up by the other section splits which you have assessed above. Just ping me when the new lead sections need to be expanded. ErnestKrause (talk) 00:22, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• As EEng correctly said above, the whole 'page source size' metric is useless. As is the 'full reading time' one. And IME splitting tends to be a lazier solution to the real problem, which is a lot of trivia information that needs to be trimmed. Splitting out indiscriminately, including valuable info, isn't really a good solution, even if it may be faster. We did kinda well keeping readable prose size manageable earlier when I (and a few others) kept a focus on trimming extreneous info, but I'm guessing we've just stopped doing that as much recently. Should do that first before any splits. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:36, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
• Wikipedia policy does have several points to make about size here at WP:Size. Still, if you have trims which you can make to those two large sections which Boud has pointed out, then it might be a good time to do the trims you have suggested. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:26, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
• I'm not volunteering for the "Media" and "Sanction" sections - there's a lot of material to check - it's not nice to the people who made the effort to develop it to remove material without first checking if it would make sense as non-redundant material in the sub-articles. Anyone willing to have a go at trimming while respecting other editors' work should go ahead.
  Someone might like to check how many times WP:PEIS was hit for COVID-19 pandemic. When I was keeping an eye on it, that happened at least twice. The first time around, I wasted a lot of time trying to understand what had happened. The second time round, I had to search for my old notes and try to remember the WP:PEIS acronym. For a very high readership article, having an article with no references displayed (an effect of WP:PEIS) makes the article look like a "heard it on the internet somewhere" article to a big number of people. Waiting until WP:PEIS happens is not wise in terms of keeping up Wikipedia's reputation for well-sourced information. Boud (talk) 21:37, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
  • I just saw that ErnestKrause has handled the Sanctions section... Boud (talk) 21:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I am already working on media for the information war article and volunteer for that section. Elinruby (talk) 07:14, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I did a trim for wordiness and paused to see if anyone has any objection to any of that. I am working with Mass media in Ukraine and Russian information war against Ukraine. Neither was created by me and each has its own problems, which I am trying to address. I could also add Mass media in Russia, as I have looked at that also and it also needs work. There is definitely some overlap in material. I guess this query should be its own section but for now, to get your attention, I will put it here. What information should I definitely leave in this article? I am thinking that the fact that most Russians AND most Ukrainians get their information from television is very important, and so is the censorship law in Russia. Probably other things too, but definitely that. The use of social media by the Ukrainian government and by younger demographics in both counties also matters. It is discussed at length in the information war article, but it likely should be expanded there and remain here as well. Thoughts? I am tied up RL all day but may be able to check in a couple of times and/or start a section to discuss this and some other thoughts I had. Elinruby (talk) 20:14, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Also note, the ownership of Ukrainian television networks isn’t mentioned here but it is notable and probably pertinent, still updating and fact checking that Elinruby (talk)

Elinruby, The trims are fine and it looks ready for the section splits and moves to the main articles for those subsections. Just leave a short 1-2 paragraph summary in this article when your done with that, maybe over of the next day or two if that's possible on your calendar. If I understand correctly, there should be no subsections left in that section as a whole and only the redirects and 1-2 paragraph summary when you are done. ErnestKrause (talk) 22:53, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

@ErnestKrause: That should be fine. My response to comments may be delayed by a few hours is all. I wouldn’t normally even note that, but this is a big, high-traffic article on a contentious topic. I have questions but will start a new section for them Elinruby (talk) 01:55, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Section Break 1

This is simply a section break to allow easier commenting, as the trimming for this article moves ahead. --Sm8900 (talk) 00:03, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 March 2022

Moved from Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine/Archive 5

—CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • C • L)} 19:44, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello from Korea! I have an update on sanctions against Russia announced by the Korea. Can we please add this new information to section 6.1 Sanctions? I hops this information can reach those suffering from war disinformation campaign before Putin bans wikipedia... ㅜㅠ

On March 1st South Korea announced it would stop all transactions with 7 main Russian banks and their affiliates, restrict the purchase of Russian treasury bonds, and agreed to "immediately implement" and join any further economics sanctions imposed against Russia by the European Union. 222.99.95.163 (talk) 22:50, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

References

An open edit request doesn't belong to the Archives. Please, consider responding to this request. Or if this request is inappropriate for this article, move this request to the talk page of an appropriate article. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • C • L)} 19:44, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

 Done I've added the information to the South Korea section under Reactions. WhoAteMyButter (📨_talk│📝^contribs) 04:26, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Putin's spokesman Peskov on Russian casualties

I think this needs to be included in the casualties-section. As far as I'm aware, it's the first more or less official statement by the Russian government on the casualties their military has suffered since the doubtful figures they put out on March 25. Full text in the video of the interview, short summary (from Sky): "Vladimir Putin's spokesman has admitted a "significant" loss of Russian troops since the invasion of Ukraine began, telling Sky News their deaths are a "tragedy"." Source: https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-putins-spokesman-denies-war-crimes-but-admits-significant-russian-losses-12584552. I see no reason not to include this statement. 82.176.221.176 (talk) 09:54, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

RIA Novosty losses

Source

Буча и концентрированное зло: последний аргумент против русских - РИА Новости, 05.04.2022 (archive.org) deleted link:ria.ru

Article Archive:

Буча и концентрированное зло: последний аргумент против русских - РИА Новости, 05.04.2022 (archive.org) http://web.archive.org/web/20220407222347/https://ria.ru/20220405/rusofobiya-1781778401.html

Losses 5 April

Per Russia (5 April): 1,500 soldiers killed,

Per the DPR and LNR (5 April): 1,500 soldiers killed

Translated Text:

More than twenty thousand people have already died in Ukraine - almost fifteen hundred of our military and about the same number of soldiers DNR and LNR, and under twenty thousand on the Ukrainian side (including about a thousand civilians). That is, this civil war, and it is a civil war, albeit in the form of a conflict between two states, is already costing us a lot of Russian blood (it is shedding on both sides). This is a real tragedy for the Russians. More than twenty thousand people have already died in Ukraine - almost one and a half thousand of our military and about the same number of soldiers of the DPR and LPR, and about twenty thousand from the Ukrainian side (including about a thousand civilians). That is, this civil war, and it is civil, albeit in the form of a conflict between two states, is already costing us a lot of Russian blood (it is she who is shed on both sides). This is a real tragedy for the Russians.

The BBC is reporting this as part of today's (7 April) news covering the UN expulsion of Russia from the Humanitarian committees, adding the casualty statistics here as [4]: "However, his (Peskov's) admission that Russia has suffered significant casualties is striking. On 25 March, Russia's Ministry of Defence said 1,351 of its soldiers had been killed in combat. Ukraine puts the Russian deaths at almost 19,000." ErnestKrause (talk) 17:06, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

@ErnestKrause 196.191.229.87 (talk) 09:55, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

There is a Casualties section in the article now which some editors are trying to maintain; the issue of discrepancies between Russian reports and Ukrainian reports is sometimes discussed under the topic of the fog-of-war. Current statistics of the casualties toll in Mariupol is in the tens of thousands for civilian casualties. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:32, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

'Russia admits ‘significant losses of troops’ in Ukraine'

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/8/we-have-significant-losses-and-its-a-huge-tragedy-kremlin

Please sign your posts on talk pages, using four tildes (~~~~), or clicking the signature icon on the edit toolbar. --Renat 12:26, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

One fifth of the total of Russian troops killed in the Ukraine were officers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.244.210.117 (talk) 14:07, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

The Ukraine support is totally missing here. Why?

Misinformation 82.77.10.112 (talk) 12:52, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, but we have WP:NPOV. This is a encyclopedia, WP:NOTADVOCACY. — I'ma editor2022 ^{(🗣️💬 |📖📚)} 14:09, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Its not, we have information about it, under Foreign military involvement (for example). Slatersteven (talk) 14:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Equipment

Is there any reliable data what heavy equipment is available to both sides? While there is considerable open source intelligence about confirmed equipment losses, it is obscure e.g. how many tanks participate in the invasion. I think the article would gain from that. --Rebentisch (talk) 14:28, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

The tank and infantry divisions are listed at the start of the Invasion section of the article. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:47, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 April 2022

Add under "Commanders and Leaders" for Russia General Alexander Dvornikov. Source Perathian (talk) 14:32, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

He is added as lead commander for Russian invasion in the "Invasion" section of the article. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Russia has appointed a new commander of the entire invasion: Please add to Infobox This was reported in the BBC News today (9 April, 2022). See here. (no signature)

→‎Invasion and resistance: Dvornikov assigned as military commander of 2022 invasion by Russia. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:58, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in article template discussion

Available here Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2022 April 9#Template:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine infobox - DownTownRich (talk) 15:09, 10 April 2022 (UTC:)

This discussion has been closed 2-3 times by separate editors. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:39, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 11 April 2022

1. (minor edit) Error in the lead: "in an internationally condemned an act of aggression". The "an" before "act of aggression" needs to be removed.

2. Additionally, I think the lead should say the persons, groups, or states who consider this an act of aggression. According to the sources given, this would be the United Nations and the Council on Foreign Relations, who should be attributed in-text (In My Opinion).

Thanks -- QueenofBithynia (talk) 12:25, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Part #1 appears to have already been done. I actually agree with the "Oh the hilarity ensues" section; this should not be included in the opening sentence or lead whatsoever. Remove this from here but mention further on, as with other articles covering similar topics. QueenofBithynia (talk) 12:56, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Kyrgyz mercenaries?

RFE/RL: "many Kyrgyz citizens -- in Russia as migrant workers -- have voluntarily joined the Russian military as contractors in return for money or fast-tracked Russian citizenship." https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyzstan-russia-invasion-ukraine-fighting/31795637.html

---

Երևանցի ^talk 12:48, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Contract soldiers serving in the regular Russian military to gain Russian citizenship. Almost the same as non-US citizens serving in the U.S. Military so they could gain US citizenship. So not mercenaries. EkoGraf (talk) 19:55, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Foreign contract soldiers in regular/official armies are ordinary thing. Such troops are not mercenaries (see definition of mercenary in Geneva Convention). Alex Spade (talk) 00:55, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Proposal: Modify article structure, based on chronology

As of this week, the war has appeared to enter a new phase. Based on this turn of events, i would like to recommend that we create some chronological-based structure for this article, rather than solely by region.

• all of the current sections would be grouped under a larger heading, "Start of invasion until early April 2022." then an entirely new section for "Early April 2022 to present" would be created,
  • this could also be grouped further in subsections by region, or by military campaign, or various other mechanisms.
• there need not be an absolute cutoff in time from one section to the next. if the end of a campaign that began in the first phase has overlapped slightly in to the second phase, then that would be totally fine.

as per an article in the Washington Post, please see the quote below. this highlights a vast new conflict that appears to be starting in the eastern region of Ukraine. this amounts to a major new military campaign.

Russian forces bombarded several towns in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, destroying an airport and damaging several civilian targets, as the war careens toward a pivotal new phase. The shift of the war and fears of full-scale military confrontation on open terrain prompted Ukrainian officials to again call for Western alliances to step up weapons supply efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield. Ukraine is preparing for a “massive attack in the east,” its ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, warned Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Of the Russian forces, she said: “There are so many of them and they still have so much equipment. And it looks like they’re going to use all of it. So we are preparing for everything.” Military analysts have been predicting the movement of the war toward the eastern border that Ukraine shares with Russia in an area known as Donbas. The energy-rich region includes territory where pro-Russian forces have been battling the Kyiv government since 2014.

how does that sound? Please feel free to comment. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:13, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Comments

• Seems like a good idea to me. Jr8825 • Talk 14:31, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
• Both Russia and Ukraine have acknowledged that a second phase of the Invasion is to be expected at this time following its withdrawal of the Kyiv front. This next phase is to start within the next two weeks, allowing for the resupply and redeployment of these Russian troops to Southeastern Ukraine. Suggest for now that editors wait at least for the start of the incursion by this second phase of the Russian invasion in order to see how extensive the Wikipedia outline for this article might need to be updated. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:00, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I hear your point, and I appreciate your reply. However, for articles that track current events, it is often better to simply change the structure now, if we know we will need to do sin the future anyway. This conflict is complex and so fast-moving, that respectfully, I would like to open a new chronological structure now, just to greatly make it easier to update this article and to keep it current. One of the main benefits of articles like this one, is that we can capture events as they happen, open up new possible ideas, ad then restructure later.

Based on your comments, I will create a new article now, just to provide a chronological approach to this conflict. this structure is already in effect fo the Syrian Civil War , on a notable scale. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:08, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

In principle that's possible, but at this point its still unclear if Russian will be combining both the Southern front and the Eastern front into a newly integrated Invasion front under the newly appointed field commander. At present the article is organized into two fronts operating in the southeast of Ukraine awaiting reinforcement by troops and tank divisions being redeployed from the Kyiv offensive. I have added just now the satellite image articles for this redeployment of Russian military divisions. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:17, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Sm8900 Rather than breaking off a new article for this second phase of the Invasion as you did here Russian Invasion of Ukraine (April 2022 to present), would it not be easier to simply start of a new section for the second phase of the Invasion here in this article? Why create a new page which will need to reduplicate much of this article as to its references, background information, and citations? ErnestKrause (talk) 15:21, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

you make some good points. okay, I will move that article to my own user space. I will create a new section here in this article within the near future, as long as no one objects. I appreciate your helpful comments, ErnestKrause (talk · contribs)--Sm8900 (talk) 15:25, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

If you think its useful, then I could reorganize the Invasion section here to combine the two active fronts (Southern and Eastern) into a single section of the TOC in the invasion section here, and that will allow you to start the second phase of the invasion when you are ready. At present its just not know if there will be multiple fronts in the second phase of the invasion all originating in a newly united Russian Southeastern invasion front. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:31, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, that idea sounds pretty good to me. I favor any structure for this article which primarily aligns with some chronological sequence for the conflict overall, and then within that time-based structure, can also focus on specific regions, campaigns, or battles, but primarily based on when they happened, rather than solely based on their geographical location. so yes, I would suggest you move ahead with the changes that you propose above. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:46, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

The TOC of the article is now adjusted for the active fronts being separated as a section to "Southeastern fronts" and different from the other fronts which have been closed by the Russian troop withdrawals. The article TOC is currently set at '3' and you may want to change it to '4' to make the subsections I have just created visible in the TOC displayed for the article as a whole. The active front sections are now created within the current Invasion section. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:03, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

that sounds good. thanks for your efforts. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:06, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I would like to add some additional text to the section heading for the current section "Invasion and Resistance", to explicitly reference one general time period which includes the period of time from the start of the invasion, until the start of April 2022; and then the new section would explictly indicate a second time period, starting in April 2022. I don't have any urgency for this to occur; you are free to make this edit, or I may do so in a little while, based on the content as you structured it. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:09, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

My original thought was that you wanted to do a Phase one and Phase two for the Southeastern front section, which still makes sense to me, and that you would then date the Phase one and Phase two as to the dates which fit the best. When I previously thought of doing this as a complete section duplication, then there was a problem of all of the other subsections of the article at its tail end which deal with Western Ukraine, the large scale missile attacks country-wide, etc., which would be difficulty to reduplicate. Can you do what you want to do on the principle of a Phase one and Phase two within the new Southeastern front section which I just added to the TOC? Also, it might help to mention a time-frame for doing all this; Russian sources seem to be emphasizing that the end of the siege of Mariupol will signal the end of Phase one and the start of Phase two for the Russian invasion. Is this worth noting for what you have planned at this time? ErnestKrause (talk) 16:26, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi. ok, that sounds totally fine. I can use the approach that you suggest, exactly as you describe it above. if I need to change it, I can always change it later, and discuss it here. --Sm8900 (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, no, wait a second. my thought was to do a "phase one" for the entire conflict, and a "phase two" for the entire conflict. since this is an article about a historical event, the time frame is of paramount importance. the sections on regions can stay as they are, but they need to be grouped into an overall section for a phase of the conflict based upon chronological grouping for the entire conflict, not just for one region. after all, future readers, editors, and future generations will view any historical event based upon its timing, its dates, chronological sequence, etc.

if we adopt a set of time periods now to define the history of the conflict, we are only anticipating the structure which we will undoubtedly adopt for this historical topic eventually anyway.

the section for Phase Two would of course have its own subsections, based upon region, just as Phase One does. but this way we are keepign the chronological period for individual events, as a sound chronological basis for the entire sequence of events in this conflict. --Sm8900 (talk) 17:45, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the time frame, it seems to make sense to wait perhaps 2-3 days for what many sources are calling the immanent fall of Mariupol. Russian invasion in phase two should be very clear at that transition point. Is it possible to wait 2-3 days for end of Siege of Mariupol before a final decision on the TOC? ErnestKrause (talk) 17:53, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Sure! okay, this sounds fine. I would be glad to work cooperatively on this. if you wish to wait for that time to elapse, and then pick an approach on that basis, that sounds totally fine to me. We can discuss this further later, using the time period that you indicate. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:38, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Looting article

I think there has been enough coverage for a standalone article on the looting done during the invasion. I started a draft here: Looting during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Any help would be appreciated. Thriley (talk) 17:32, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

@Thriley: there is also some information and sources in War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Looting.--Staberinde (talk) 09:19, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Expansion of NATO

Finland and Sweden have both declared that they intend to join NATO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.244.210.117 (talk) 06:22, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I think we need to wait till they do. Slatersteven (talk) 09:18, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Official confirmation of them applying for membership would be the appropriate point for a mention here.--Staberinde (talk) 09:34, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

They have expressed desire however that does not really mean anything unless they join NATO or are recognized as a major non-NATO ally. FictiousLibrarian (talk). 22:05, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Opening sentence; Part Two (Oh the hilarity ensues)

The very first sentence of this article begins:

"Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022 in an internationally condemned act of aggression."

And yet the article say on the Second World War begins:

"World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945."

Or the Korean War...

"The Korean War (see § Names) was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953."

Neither of article begins:

"The such-and-such conflict/war began on this [date] when such-and-such country invaded another such-and-such country in an internationally condemned act of aggression."

Spot the diferrence? This article starts off with opinion before it even gets to the facts. All military conflicts are an act of agression. Hilariously bad even for amateur night at Wikipedia.146.200.202.126 (talk) 11:35, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Tact aside, the IP has a point. Some of the more comparable articles I can see are Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the United States invasion of Grenada - all with obvious aggressors condemned internationally. In those articles, international reactions show up in the 3rd, 2nd, and 5th paragraphs of the lead respectively. Our current lead section for this article already has an entire paragraph for international condemnation (5th paragraph) - I say reserve the first paragraph for the invasion itself and the background. Juxlos (talk) 11:44, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Agree. Reword the sentence, move out the "aggression" part to the appropriate paragraph/section. EkoGraf (talk) 12:04, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

+1 Jr8825 • Talk 14:10, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I would think that lede should follow the general structure of the article. In this case: background -> invasion -> impacts -> etc. With that in mind, you could feasibly simply change the leading sentence to: Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022 marking a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity. Everything else in that first paragraph may then be moved to the appropriate location and the second paragraph joined to the first. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:48, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

The current version of the Normandy invasion (also known as Operation Overlord) introduced the article as follows: "Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II." The previous version of this discussion in the sections above on this Talk page should somehow be linked here. ErnestKrause (talk) 15:08, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

• I like Mr mddude's suggestion Elinruby (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
• Per the emerging consensus here, I've edited the article's lead to attempt to address these concerns. Feel free to further refine as appropriate; I've been relatively conservative here in only moving the information about the international condemnation to the second sentence, rather than to another paragraph entirely (which would require more restructuring of the lead section). Elli (talk | contribs) 23:54, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

  I would say keep the lead paragraph short - the international condemnation is already mentioned in the last paragraph of the lead. In the Annexation of Crimea article, for example, the lead paragraph consist of two sentences:

  In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. This event took place in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and is part of the wider Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

  Although I suppose one can argue that the international reaction for this is much more notable and strong than it was against the 2014 annexation, so maybe it does belong in the first paragraph. Juxlos (talk) 03:20, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Notice of group resource

I would like to invite any interested editors here to join the task force for Contemporary History. One of our core goals is to highlight and promote the coverage of contemporary history as its own distinct area here at Wikipedia.

We differ from a simple effort to cover current events, in that we seek to provide the editing community with resources that would allow it to provide broad and comprehensive coverage of articles on contemporary history as a broad topical field, rather than simply on individual current events as they may occur.

to that end, we have set up articles such as 2020s in political history, which allow the whole editing community to adopt a broad scope in keeping wikipedia updated with broad historical trends, topics and events, as they occur, but also as they become relevant to the field of history overall. I hope that sounds helpful and worthwhile to you. you are welcome to join us in any way, or to offer any input or ideas that you may wish. we welcome your input. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 13:50, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Media depictions: Uncited OR?

Moving this here for discussion: "social media users showed sympathy for Russian narratives more due to cynicism about US foreign policy rather than support for the invasion as such."

While possibly true, this is followed by zero citations. There are quite a few in front of it though Elinruby (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

It could be deleted or have a cite tag added prior to it being split to a new page or moved to one of the sibling pages, and deleted from this article. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:10, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Nod, just noting it as a change somebody might disagree with. I will restore the text if the citations that precede it support it or if somebody has another good reason why it should be there. I will need to verify those sources anyway. I have seen the kind of post this is talking about but it should be cited. Has anyone started a social media in the Ukraine invasion page? One might be warranted. For now I guess I will summarize these two paragraphs and move the highly referenced detail to Russian information war against Ukraine. This does also include Ukrainian actions, which is about to become more prominent in the pending reorganization, if anyone is concerned about that. I will now be offline for several hours Elinruby (talk) 16:42, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Elinruby, I take it that there were no sources cited to support this statement? Cinderella157 (talk) 02:03, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 13 April 2022

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Club On a Sub 20 (talk) 16:53, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Change "news tha" to "news that

 Done. lol1VNIO^{[not Lol1VNIO]} (talk • contribs) 17:02, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Answered= — Preceding unsigned comment added by Club On a Sub 20 (talk • contribs) 16:23, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Environmental impact of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

I started an article for the Environmental impact of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Any help would be appreciated. Thriley (talk) 18:00, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 14 April 2022

On April 14th the Russian Federation flagship, "Moskva," sank. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/14/europe/russia-navy-cruiser-moskva-fire-abandoned-intl-hnk-ml/index.html. Russia has aid that ammunition had an accidental explosion. The Ukraine forces have announced that they targeted and hit Moskva with 2 Neptune missiles and it started a fire, listed to the side and began to sink. The loss of this vessel is a huge morale boost to Ukraine and loss to Russia. This ship had bombarded Mariupol. It has surface to air (both short and ling range), naval ship to ship missiles, anti submarine armaments and other weapons. https://en.as.com/latest_news/moskva-ship-how-big-is-it-when-was-it-built-what-weapons-does-it-have-n/ AgAero89 (talk) 21:47, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

I made this addition after the Russian and Ukraines both reported the loss of this vessel. AgAero89 (talk) 21:48, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Please be specific as to the edit you are requesting to be made. The article already has a paragraph on the sinking of the Moskve. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:57, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § Russian cruiser Moskva

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates § Russian cruiser Moskva. Venkat TL (talk) 23:29, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Armenia accepting Russian economic migrants

The Refugees section lists several countries that have accepted Russian political refugees and economic migrants ("A second refugee crisis created by the invasion and by the Russian government's crackdown has been the flight of approximately 300,000 Russian political refugees and economic migrants, the largest exodus from Russia since the October Revolution of 1917, to countries such as the Baltic states, Finland, Georgia, and Turkey"). Armenia, having accepted 43000 refugees from Russia, was listed among them but has since been removed. The referred article in this section talks mainly about Armenia as the major destination for Russian IT workers.

--Unotheo (talk) 02:13, 15 April 2022 (UTC)