Talk:Russia

map should be altered to follow China map

On the China map the controlled areas are in dark green and the claimed but not controlled areas are in light green. Using the same coloration, the Russia controlled part of Donbas should be colored dark green and the remaining part of Donbas which Russia claims but does not control should be colored in light green. The southern Kurils should also be colored dark green because these are controlled by Russia.

China

216.165.212.113 (talk) 21:01, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Russian cities listed in lead

@Juihui Since you are continuing to edit war rather than opening a talk page discussion, here you go. Please explain why it is necessary to list almost a dozen cities in the immediate lead when it is unsupported by the body of the article or references. TylerBurden (talk) 17:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Let's keep random examples to a minimum in the lead.WP:COUNTRYLEAD. Moxy🍁 17:46, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Note that you are also edit warring and are at three reverts now. You removed the list of cities entirely. I have restored the long-standing version for now. Mellk (talk) 17:46, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

What is the criteria for the current list...is it just size? For example at the fa article Canada the capital is listed and the three population centers over 2 million.... at Japan they only list the one area... the most populated area. Moxy🍁 18:04, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I think these are ordered by population but I am not sure what is the cut off point, there are many more cities with a population of more than one million. But I would not be opposed to reducing the number of cities altogether. Mellk (talk) 18:08, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Why don't we say something actually informative.... rather than just a random list... along the lines of.... Russia is a highly urbanized country consisting of 16 population centers with over million inhabitants Moxy🍁 18:22, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

It looks like it is 75% urbanized,[1] which is not as high as some other countries, but I think something along those lines would be better, or a different way of rephrasing it. "Other major cities" is not very clear. Mellk (talk) 18:32, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry forgot the source...

Klimanova, Oxana; Illarionova, Olga; Grunewald, Karsten; Bukvareva, Elena (2021-11-25). "Green Infrastructure, Urbanization, and Ecosystem Services: The Main Challenges for Russia's Largest Cities". Land. 10 (12). MDPI AG. doi:10.3390/land10121292. ISSN 2073-445X. Russia is a highly urbanized country: ....Russia's 16 largest cities, including ......e=1292 Moxy🍁 18:52, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

OK, sure, that could work. Mellk (talk) 19:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

@TylerBurden:.... What do you think of the green text above?Moxy🍁 19:40, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy Seems like a much better summary than randomly listing large population cities when editors apparently can't agree on what order to put them, so I'm not opposed to making that change. TylerBurden (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done...plus tweak economy ....as it drop random stats already in infobox and body.Moxy🍁 03:47, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Map is wrong

The light green part is disputed but not claimed. This area is controlled by Russia and claimed by Ukraine. The remaining part of Donbas is controlled by Ukraine and claimed by Russia.

136.143.213.226 (talk) 00:50, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

State leaders in infobox

I don’t understand why my edits adding state leaders of Russia - the leaders of parliament and the Supreme Court - to the infobox are consistently deleted? One argument for removing these edits is that these leaders are not mentioned in the article. But after I saw this argument, I checked the relevant articles of Ukraine, Moldova and China, and saw that they listed other state leaders in the infobox, but not in the article itself. Double standards? Since I don't want to start an edit war, I would like to discuss with you why it is NOT possible to add Russian state leaders to the infobox, thereby creating the false illusion that there are no major state positions in Russia other than the President and PM. @Moxy. PLATEL (talk) 01:46, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how in a dictatorship listing non-relevant people helps our readers. The reason they're not mentioning in the article is they're completely insignificant. Moxy🍁 01:48, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Syria? Iran? North Korea? Myanmar? Transnistria? Cuba?

At first, you argued for the removal of Russian state leaders by the fact that they were not mentioned in the article. Now you have changed your argument to say that the third, fourth and fifth most important positions in the country are held by irrelevant people. Both of your arguments are not used in any existing “dictatorship” except Russia and Belarus. Please can you tell me the real and permanent reason for your removal of Russian (and Belarusian) state leaders from their respective pages? Or maybe you would be so kind as to allow me to add these important government positions to these countries, and not play with double standards. Please. PLATEL (talk) 01:57, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

No change in position don't care about other articles. If they are listing people that are irrelevant it should be removed as well. The info box is to regurgitate information that's in the article.... not to set a precedence. Moxy🍁 02:01, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

UPD counterquestion. How will removing all leaders except the President and PM help readers? I think this will only lead to inconvenience. If the reader wants to know about the head of the State Duma or the Supreme Court, they will have to follow two links, not one. Because you decided that it would be more convenient for them to navigate through two links, rather than through one. PLATEL (talk) 01:59, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

What you should be doing is proposing text for the body of article and perhaps then we can move to the info box. Please search the archive you'll see we've talked about this before. Moxy🍁 02:01, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay, in this case, I will add to the page mentions of who holds the post of heads of the Federation Council, State Duma and Supreme Court, and will also add them to the Infobox. Are you satisfied with this conflict resolution? PLATEL (talk) 02:03, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

None of these individuals have merited inclusion in the article body throughout the many years and review processes this article has undergone, it seems a big jump to go straight to adding them into the lead. CMD (talk) 02:36, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and I want to improve this encyclopedia by adding those state leaders who for some reason were not in the article before. What's the problem, honestly? Is there any ban on adding all Russian leaders except the President and PM? and why, if you consider Russia a dictatorship, should you leave the PM, but not the heads of parliament, for example, although they are generally in equal de facto positions today? PLATEL (talk) 02:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't personally think the classification of a dictatorship matters by itself, dictatorships come in different forms as do non-dictatorships. Either way, the question is due weight, and if these are de facto equal positions it would be very helpful if you could provide good sources to this point that help demonstrate such weight. CMD (talk) 02:45, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Above, I expressed to you a position that I myself do not support. However, the position where Russia is described as an authoritarian or even totalitarian dictatorship is supported by consensus, which you can see in the article. According to this position, all absolute power in Russia belongs to Putin, and other positions are only nominal and irrelevant. Look above at this discussion. I support another, marginal position on Wikipedia, where according to the Russian constitution, there are important government positions in key branches of government that are truly relevant in the Russian system.

But even despite the "fact" that Russia is the same authoritarian country as Iran, for example, in Russia's page government positions other than the president and PM are not mentioned, unlike Iran's page, where they are mentioned, including in the infobox.

I don't understand why not mentioning important state positions is a good thing for Wikipedia. Perhaps this is a boon for the narrative that all power in Russia belongs to Putin. But Wikipedia is not a collection of narratives, but an encyclopedia. And I want to make a positive contribution to this encyclopedia. PLATEL (talk) 02:54, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

As I stated, it's a question of WP:DUE weight. These individuals have not even merited a mention on Politics of Russia. To establish weight, it would be helpful if you could provide reliable secondary sourcing to the points you are making, rather than referring to other en.wiki country pages, which are commonly bloated. CMD (talk) 03:14, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Ranking for Russia GDPPC nominal is incorrect for some reason?

GDP per capita nominal ranking for Russia here is incorrect, it should be 65th according to IMF,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita Hongediting2013 (talk) 07:19, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done Charliehdb (talk) 09:38, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Authoritarian

A recent RfC for China overwhelmingly opposed the inclusion of "Authoritarian" in the infobox. The main argument was that "authoritatian" isn't a government system. I believe the same should apply to Russia (and other articles with similar infoboxes). Any thoughts? '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 08:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

What are government types?

Quick find: "Totalitarianism is a form of government in which the state holds total control over society and seeks to regulate every aspect of public and private life (Gregor, 2012; Gregor, 2008; Siegel, 1998; Guilhot, 2005)." 10 Real-Life Totalitarianism Examples (2024) (helpfulprofessor.com) ManyAreasExpert (talk) 08:43, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

But the word is "authoritarian" not "totalitarian". My initial reaction is that "totalitarianism" is a government system whereas "authoritarian" is more of descriptive style of whatever the system is. Maybe that's too pedantic. Don't know. DeCausa (talk) 08:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

There is no rule that we should be constrained by the template field name. The goal is to represent what reliable sources say the best we can. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 08:09, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

No, we should follow the template documentation. DeCausa (talk) 08:12, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The doc is also not a solid stone and is a subject of an agreement and change. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 08:16, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

If the template doesn't conform to the common use of terms, then the template is wrong. GMG^talk 11:34, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

That's an issue for the template talk page. Not here. DeCausa (talk) 14:29, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The template doc can or can't be a fit for all the pages. It's not a rule and and it's imperfection should not hinder us from improving this page - WP:NOTBURO. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:35, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the template. I've never seen anyone else say there is a problem. Sounds like an artificial way of shoe-horning a particular point of view. DeCausa (talk) 21:18, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I...honestly don't really care, other than to say that the template documentation is a technical guide, and not a rationale for deciding a content dispute. GMG^talk 15:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Just to add to my earlier comment. I took a look at the China RfC. Pincrete while supporting the China change distinguished it from the Russia infobox as follows: Russia actually has "under an authoritarian dictatorship", not simply the adjective 'authoritarian'. Dictatorship is a system of government, not simply a disapproving adjective like 'authoritarian'. That seems a valid point. DeCausa (talk) 08:11, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The infobox currently calls Russia an "authoritarian dictatorship", but that specific wording is only backed by the first source. The others call Russia authoritarian, but don't use that specific term. Unless more rouses back "authoritarian dictatorship", I'd say we should just go with "authoritarian government". Cortador (talk) 13:28, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

In Russia, political opposition and dissent is heavily suppressed, and power is heavily concentrated in the executive branch, so "authoritarian dictatorship" is correct. If Russia operated under a more collective leadership system like Vietnam, then "authoritarian government" would be more appropriate.

China and Vietnam do not use either label because their de jure political systems do not have presidential/PM elections, but there is an argument to apply the former label for China because it had previously been under collective leadership, but is now essentially one-man rule. 2603:8001:8F40:5C:FC9F:6846:B32E:BBCC (talk) 18:49, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, 2022. Green countries are democratic, yellow are hybrid regimes, and red are authoritarian governments.

As seen over at RfC for China it was filled with people that lack basic knowledge of the sources. Even claming there were no sources at all dispite it being the example used in most publications. Somtimes RFCs lead us down a road that is less informative for our readers espesiacly when they are closed fast and by someone that was involved in the debate. The debate that is taking place for Russia is "Authoritarianism to totalitarianism?" .Moxy🍁 10:12, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Agree ManyAreasExpert (talk) 10:19, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't have any knowledge or opinion about the use of 'authoritarian' iro Russia. but just point out that 'authoritarian' and 'dictatorship' are nearly tautologous (benign dictatorship being largely theoretical and democratic dictatorship being a contradiction in terms). Dictatorship is a form of govt, but authoritarian is an adjective describing a character rather than a form, that can be applied to most forms of govt, including the nominally democratic, monarchist etc. Last night I happened to watch a PBS documentary in which Woodrow Wilson's administration was described as 'authoritarian' towards the end of WWI.Pincrete (talk) 10:58, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

But what we should be doing is regurgitating the sources...... and with those sources leading our readers to more informative academic opinion. If there's are sources out there that say this is a rainbow democracy we should also use those....... however this is simply not the case. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL. Moxy🍁 22:48, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with CanonNi, at RfC for China, the overwhelming majority opposed the inclusion of these words in the information field. As mentioned by Remsense, it is a higher-level characterization of the political culture, it could be detailed in the article's body, but it's not data for the infobox. As Cortador wrote, that specific wording is only backed by the first source, unless there is broad scientific agreement from multiple sources, we should not use this. Overall, this is far too simplistic to put in an infobox, it violates WP:NPOV, such characteristics could be further in the text, but do not belong in the infobox. I will also tag some people from the discussion that has already taken place-Simonm223, Ships&Space, Jetsettokaiba, Alexanderkowal, HenryMP02. Jirka.h23 (talk) 11:44, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Some basic reading for you Moxy🍁 11:54, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, but I don't see that specific wording there even once, anyway, we're talking about the infobox.Jirka.h23 (talk) 12:07, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Officially, Russia is a republic, similarish to the United States. It's only in practice that it's an authoritarian dictatorship. While WP:NPOV does mean that there needs to be a mention of multiple sides (without falling afoul of WP:UNDUE), it also means refraining from making potentially slanderous claims without a significant body of evidence to justify its inclusion. Not only is "authoritarian" not only an imprecise label, it's also a negative one; it doesn't belong in the infobox, and the text should use more precise terms/expand significantly on the concept. "Dictatorship" is a similarly loaded term. I'd suggest labeling it as a "semi-presidential republic" and add a note explaining the de facto situation. Ships & Space_(Edits) 15:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

That's exactly the Russian position.... "We are not an authoritarian regime....we are a democracy with an elected president" Echols, William (2023-03-22). "Russia's False Arguments Against Being Called Authoritarian". Voice of America.Moxy🍁 18:38, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

It seems the concept of WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, which is an established guideline, has gone out of the window here for some editors, in the "government and politics" section the article reads: "Under the administrations of Vladimir Putin, Russia has experienced democratic backsliding, and has become an authoritarian state under a dictatorship, with Putin's policies being referred to as Putinism."

The infobox thus effectively sums up this part of the article as it should. TylerBurden (talk) 19:26, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

past pro-Russian protests

@Flemmish Nietzsche, what the source [2] says, exactly? Can't find it. Thanks! ManyAreasExpert (talk) 10:39, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

It's not really about what the source says, more so, as I said in the edit summary, that the wording of "where most of the inhabitants wanted to stay in Ukraine" is quite misleading — this source (1) shows a referendum, and using the wording from the 2014 Donbas status referendums article, A poll released by the Kyiv Institute of Sociology, with data gathered from 8–16 April, 41.1% of people in Donetsk were for decentralisation of Ukraine with powers transferred to regions, while letting it remain a unified state, 38.4% for changing Ukraine into federation, 27.5% were in favour of secession from Ukraine to join the Russian Federation, and only 10.6% supported current unitary structure without changes. We say that "most of the inhabitants wanted to stay in Ukraine", yet in reality this can be misleading to imply that those who wanted to stay in some form of Ukrainian state were happy with the current government, which is in fact not true, according to the poll. That 10.6% who supported the current government structure is not exactly "most of the inhabitants". I think it would be better to leave that clause out altogether and just leave it how I changed it to, "to start a war in the Donbas region in the east of Ukraine where there had been past pro-Russian protests." Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 22:01, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

It's not really about what the source says
We are relying what the source says. Your poll actually confirms Plokhy. If your source doesn't say "past pro-Russian protests" then it should be removed. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Well we have a whole article about the "pro-Russian protests" — are you saying we need a source to verify that the protests happened, or that they were pro-Russian? Either way, I changed the source to a Reuters article. (1) When I said "It's not really about what the source says", I meant that my edit that you partially reverted on this article was to change the poor wording of that clause, "where most of the inhabitants wanted to stay in Ukraine". Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 22:17, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Poor wording can be improved but removal is not an improvement. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:23, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

No, it definitely is, as we don't have to follow the exact wording of the source or even include every detail it includes. The goal is to write in WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and not to closely WP:PARAPHRASE. If the article would be more neutral (WP:NPOV) without using that wording at all, it certainly would be an improvement to remove it.

If source A (the source we have already and the one that wording is being copied from) and source B (the Kyiv Institute of Sociology poll and the pro-Russian separatism) say different things, then we should go with the one that is more objective — a poll from the actual people living there is much more objective than some wording in a journal or book. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 22:29, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

we don't have to follow the exact wording
But you can't conclude that the content should be deleted from this. WP:NPOV tells us to relay all the important POVs, not to delete these. The Kyiv Institute of Sociology poll actually confirms Plokhy thesis. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:35, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Could you explain how you came to that conclusion that it confirms his thesis? My point is that to the uninformed reader, the wording may seem to imply that the inhabitants of the Donbas wanted the status quo in terms of autonomy and governance, when in reality most wanted neither that nor to be annexed into Russia. Either way we word it, it is going to have some undue weight issues, so for that I think it should be excluded altogether.

I changed the wording to "in the east of Ukraine where there had been previous pro-Russian protests but where many inhabitants still did not want to be annexed into Russia", which should be slightly better if you are stubborn on not deleting that wording altogether. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 22:44, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Could you explain how you came to that conclusion that it confirms his thesis?
It says 27.5% were in favour of secession from Ukraine so it confirms Plokhy

My point is that to the uninformed reader, the wording may seem to imply that the inhabitants of the Donbas wanted the status quo in terms of autonomy and governance
No, it just says that most wanted to stay in Ukraine.

it is going to have some undue weight issues, so for that I think it should be excluded altogether
No, it's not Undue since you provided the poll confirming it.

I changed the wording to "in the east of Ukraine where there had been previous pro-Russian protests but where many inhabitants still did not want to be annexed into Russia", which should be slightly better if you are stubborn on not deleting that wording altogether.
This is wrong as "not to be annexed into Russia" is different to "stay with Ukraine". ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:50, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree in that 72.5% does constitute "most of the inhabitants" — however, there is still implications from the statement which would be better off kept out of the article. We don't have to follow every source we cite to the exact letter. Of course "not be annexed into Russia" is different than "stay with Ukraine" but both are simultaneously true even if they are different. The latter is more neutral and is supported by the poll as well.

No, it just says that most wanted to stay in Ukraine. Yes, it does "just say that" but it is with the placement of the wording that brings about the implications from it. Less is definitely more here. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 23:44, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

If there are disagreements then we should prefer to be as close to what the source says as possible. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 10:30, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Now, protests happened, and also Americans went to the Moon, but we aren't adding all of this to imply the context we want, until there are such a sources. And that context should be described correctly. And your new source doesn't describe the war in Donbas to be able to describe the context you added. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:32, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Greetings @Flemmish Nietzsche, regarding your "We didn't have consensus" undo [3] . Yes, you initiated the change [4] , and there is no consensus for it. Per WP:EDITCONSENSUS we should get back to the previous version of the article. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:31, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Well you seem to have objected to my wording of "but did not want to be annexed into Russia", even though it was supported by the poll source, so I changed, in that same revision you mentioned above, the wording back to something closer to what you seem to have wanted. What do you not like, as you have called the revision on another talk page in which I was involved in as "unsourced and distorted text", about that edit that makes it so problematic? Have we not achieved consensus? Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 18:09, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

"there had been previous pro-Russian protests" is unsourced, no source provided giving such context.

"but where many inhabitants still wanted to be part of Ukraine" is vague as we have the source clearly stating "most".

We are not distorting and misrepresenting the sources in favor of NPOV as we see it. No, NPOV does not matters more then representing the sources correctly. And it's not "NPOV" to change "most" to "many". ManyAreasExpert (talk) 19:42, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

My main point wasn't about changing "most" to "many", rather the inclusion of the mention of the pro-Russian protests in that same sentence. I'll add a source to the claim of the protests that does in fact give context of the past protests when discussing the war.

References

Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 16:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 June 2024: Russia is sparsely-populated

From the lead:

"Russia is a highly urbanized country"

No doubt this is true in the same way as Belgium or Japan - urbanised isn't the same thing as densely-populated, of course - but there is no mention of Russia being the most sparsely-populated country in continental Europe in the lead, which I think is fairly important for the lead even if it's mentioned in Demographics later. People are free to disagree though. I therefore propose to change the above sentence to some variation of:

"Russia is a highly urbanised country, but it is the least densely-populated (or "most scarcely-populated") country in continental Europe (or "second after Iceland", or "177th (or whatever the number is) in the world"

Or at least a brief mention of Russia's population density elsewhere in the lead, other than the infobox

Thank you 2A02:C7E:3188:4C00:B4EC:75D:5052:6976 (talk) 00:53, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Also, I guess it's irrelevant but shouldn't the first sentence be "Russia, officially the Russian Federation" rather than "Russia, or the Russian Federation"? Other articles follow this e.g.

"France, officially the French Republic" or

"China, officially the People's Republic of China" 2A02:C7E:3188:4C00:B4EC:75D:5052:6976 (talk) 01:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

The invisible note in the lead says "Both names are equally official - see: Talk:Russia/Archive 12#Equality of the names." '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 03:38, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: Charliehdb (talk) 10:31, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Please add some offices into country infobox

It would be great if the Chair of the State Duma, the Chair of the Federation Council and the Chief Justice were also added. 78.177.160.99 (talk) 21:38, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

It would be great if you could explain why they need to be included in the infobox. TylerBurden (talk) 00:14, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Why are there different rules for different countries?

Why is Taliban’s flag used for Afghanistan when it’s not internationally recognized? The area of annexed territories should also be included as it’s quite clear they’ll never be handed back to Ukraine. Yasarhossain07 (talk) 01:10, 5 July 2024 (UTC)