Talk:Russia

Changes to lead section

Some time ago a new paragraph was added to the lead section about Russia's political system. It included numerous supposed criticisms of the Russian government, including stating that it had an "imperialist foreign policy" (no citations for this even) and has "sham elections" (in which an opinion piece was used, seriously?). It's baffling that this left unchanged for a considerable amount of time and it's clear that the person who made this edit intentionally did so to push a point of view. As a result, I changed it so that it simply mentions the domination of Russian politics by Vladimir Putin in which his government is often considered to be authoritarian to replace the previous mess, and whether this paragraph should even exist is up for debate. The previous lead section was not appropriate, which is why we don't see this in the articles of other countries, like the United States where its lead section doesn't even mention Donald Trump nor does it mention criticisms of the US government, human rights issues, US foreign policy, electoral interventions and so on. Now, is this 4th paragraph necessary or should it be condensed and added to the end of the 3rd paragraph, like it was before? Mellk (talk) 01:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@Mellk: Agreed. I reverted these changes as well before you did though this was reversed, and I decided not to contest it, as you know how ugly political discussions on Wikipedia could go. However, I successfully reverted Russia being an authoritarian nation in the government type in the infobox (this was contested, but I believe I convince the contester of it). Russian political articles needs to get the same treatment as articles on China do. Editors there have made China and the CPC (in which "observers" show some disdain) very well-balanced with praises, criticisms, and mostly straightforward unbiased information. - 祝好，Josephua^(聊天) 00:39, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

It also says in the lead section of the North Korea article that "[North Korean elections] have been described by outside observers as sham elections". If you want some sources that describe modern Russian foreign policy as "imperialism", here are a few:

https://www.juancole.com/2020/01/russian-imperialism-vladimir.html

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1832294_1832295_1836234,00.html

http://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/viewFile/4797/4690

DeathTrain (talk) 03:15, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

@Mellk:@Josephua: I believe one of the reasons why Donald Trump is not mentioned in the lead section of the United States article is because he has only been relevant in American politics for a few years while Putin has been in power for much longer, since the early 2000s. Furthermore, the American human rights record is generally not seen as particularly bad by non-governmental organizations. Most articles for countries do not mention their human rights records in their lead sections unless they are notoriously bad, like Iran, North Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Cuba or Turkmenistan. I am open to changing it, but if anything maybe it should at least say that Russia has a poor human rights situation. Also, I was the editor who added the term "imperialistic foreign policy" as a substitute for "[Russia's] military interventions in Syria and Ukraine". I though it was more concise and specific than what was already there. I am open to having it removed, but I want there to be a consensus first on whether its military interventions/foreign policy should be included at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia&diff=prev&oldid=926478255 DeathTrain (talk) 21:52, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

The previous lead section outright states that Russian elections are "sham elections" while the NK article at least has the decency to state that outside observers describe it as such, and while Russian elections are widely regarded as not being free nor fair, they are not on NK's level and are not regarded as such by these monitors. The quality of Russian elections are discussed in detail on their respective articles and sections. Also outright stating that Russian foreign policy is "imperialist" is POV-pushing and not appropriate. There are various sources that describe certain wars e.g. Iraq war as "imperialist" but that word isn't even used once on such articles, as it isn't appropriate (and the US article's lead section correctly leaves out topics such as the numerous military interventions undertaken). The point is, the lead section is supposed to be the lead section and jamming in every imaginable criticism there is incorrect. These criticisms are already in detail in their relevant sections and articles, including in the Russia page, there is absolutely no valid reason to throw all of this in the lead section with language that heavily suggests agenda-pushing. Iran's article for example only simply mentions its government as being described as authoritarian and there being significant abuses against human rights, and this is with Iran being more authoritarian and having more significant human rights abuses than Russia (and where you can get the death penalty for being gay). While it's not perfect now, it's far better than the non-NPOV mess of before and further improvements can be made with discussion. Mellk (talk) 18:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

@Mellk:I just want to remind you that the reason why I made that edit was because the paragraph already mentioned Russian military intervention in Syria and Ukraine, and I thought it was more concise and specific to just describe it as such. I did not write the initial paragraph, I just added the term "imperialistic". I guess I was already influenced by the POV that was already there. To be fair, I would like to make a distinction between "imperialist foreign policy" and "imperialistic foreign policy": the former implies that it is imperialism, whereas the latter implies that it is like imperialism. I do not think that you should confuse them. DeathTrain (talk) 02:41, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

I understand that you wanted to improve the wording on what was already written, however both "imperialist" and "imperialistic" would still not be appropriate. Both words also pretty much mean the same when looking at the dictionary definitions. Mellk (talk) 12:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Russia as european country

I am sure that Russia is indeed a transcontinental country, yet, i suggest it is necessary to affirm that Russia is a European country, because that is where it has its origins, the present explanation "is a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia" is too loose and must be modified to something more accurate like: "is an european transcontinental country, that has it's origins Eastern Europe and extents into North Asia". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.188.155.237 (talk) 20:18, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree. More than 90% of Denmark's area lies in North America's Greenland. No one disputes Denmark is as European as France. Russia is certainly as European as France. --204.197.178.92 (talk) 16:15, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Done. And I agree with what you've said. Danloud (talk) 10:48, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

disputed territories colored in light green on the map

On the map Crimea which is claimed by Ukraine is shaded in light green. Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, Habomai which are claimed by Japan should also be colored in light green. --204.197.178.92 (talk) 16:25, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

What differentiates Crimea and the islands claimed by Japan is that Crimea is not recognized internationally as owed by Russia and the international community believes that Crimea is part of Ukraine, while the islands that are claimed by Japan are internationally recognized as part of Russia, which is why these islands are colored in dark green. I hope this helps. - 祝好，Josephua^(聊天) 00:46, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Category:Slavic countries and territories

It is currently being proposed that Category:Slavic countries and territories be deleted. This article is part of that category. The relevant discussion is located at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 January 8#Countries and territories by language family. The discussion would benefit from input from editors with a knowledge of and interest in Russia. Krakkos (talk) 11:04, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

State religion

The following sources describe the Russian Orthodox Church as the de facto state religion of Russia:
should this be mentioned in the article? (The Sr Guy (talk) 01:19, 11 January 2020 (UTC)).

I don’t see an issue with this, as long as it’s described accurately. It’s “de facto”, not “de jure”. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 11:36, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Usa, canada, uk, germany also christian country; turkey, indonesia, syria its also muslim country; india and nepal its hindu country; china, vietnam, north korea its buddhist country. YOU'RE KIDDING Michealbrown51 (talk) 09:11, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

RfC on stating the Russian Orthodox Church as the state religion (de jure) of Russia in the religion section of the infobox

Should we accept the new edit that states that the Russian Orthodox Church is the de jure state religion of Russia in the religion section of the infobox with the addition of a de facto secular state, or revert back to the text See Religion in Russia. - 祝好，Josephua^(聊天) 13:25, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Reasoning

There has been a recent addition by @The Sr Guy: of having the Russian Orthodox Church be inputted in the religion section of the country's infobox as a de jure state religion while maintaining a de facto secular state, replacing See Religion in Russia. @The Sr Guy: has asserted, in simpler terms, that growing political support by the Russian government for the Church has made it a privileged religion and that it has the influence to prevent rival religions from growing. Here are the sources that he provides:

@The Sr Guy: has also did state that by the Russian constitution, Russia is a de facto secular state, and mentions this in the religion section of the infobox. Despite this, an edit like this is controversial because it may violate rules of WP:Neutrality and negatively show Russia's policy of freedom of religion. To keep this poll straight and simple: type Support if you think this addition should be warranted and kept due to the numerous sources provided, or Oppose if you think this addition should be reverted back to See Religion in Russia for neutrality. - 祝好，Josephua^(聊天) 05:28, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Nevertheless Crimea's land area is known, and could be added to that of Russia to make this article's statistics more representative of the geographical reality. EranMonkcom (talk) 23:06, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Poll

• Oppose - Although it is true that the Russian government has been giving a lot of influence to the Russian Orthodox Church lately, I am still convinced that Russia's policy of freedom of religion still have dominion over the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). There are two things to consider that I believe that See Religion in Russia should be re-added instead of the addition of a state religion: WP:Neutrality (of course, with comparisons to other articles) and that the ROC has met setbacks in its attempts to covet influence over Russia.

• Many country articles have their government set to their respective constitutions and seems by tradition to primary source, rather than secondary sources such as media. This is seen in North Korea, China, and Cuba as unitary socialist states, and that even though it is supported by many sources that these powers are authoritarian and totalitarian at best, it is not mentioned in the infoboxes of these countries. The same goes for religion. Here is an example using the China article (also a Good Article which makes a good reference for editing authoritarian states). The Communist Party of China (CPC), the ruling party of China, has openly endorsed state atheism and has curbed freedom of religion with suppression against Christians and Muslims. Despite this, the religion infobox states See Religion in China instead, primarily to preserve neutrality, as the Party did state that they respect freedom of religion in accordance to the constitution. So instead of stating de jure secular state and de facto state atheism, we get See Religion in China which covers both of these viewpoints. I think the Russia article should replicate this, as even though Russian president Vladimir Putin has openly endorsed and officially supports the ROC, the Russian constitution makes no mention of ROC and respects freedom of religion. Therefore, by tradition, we should insert what is official, but with the text See Religion in Russia, because it implies that Russia is a secular state, but also implies that there is something going on that may affect these principles of the secular state (such as Putin giving the ROC more power), so therefore no need to add a de jure or a de facto, just state See Religion in Russia, as it kills two birds with one stone.
• The ROC has a long way to go if they want to become the de facto state religion of Russia. Recently, there are a few cases where the ROC has faced setbacks. One case is the Bhagavad Gita trial, (this was in 2011, which was after the publishing of some of the sources outlined by The Sr Guy) in which a group affiliated with the ROC attempted to ban a book on Hinduism on charges of religious extremism, but this case was reversed by the Russian court. Sources are provided in the article. In addition, plans of a construction of a ROC church in a park in Yekaterinburg were cancelled after protests. Sources: In addition, although Putin officially supports the ROC as a foundation of Russia, he is also trying to appease Muslims in the nation for social stability (such as not intervening in the Chechen Republic's violations of human rights because these violations are part of the republic's Islamic culture), and has maintained good relations with them, with the construction of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque in 2015. I think it'll be much appropriate that even though Russia is suppressing freedom of religion as proven by sources, I believe Russia is more in persecuting religions/denominations that are based in the West (since they don't trust the West) than religions that are based in the East, which is why Russia is more keen in persecuting Protestants and Catholics rather than Orthodox, Muslims, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

I hope these are good points to convince you guys. I think the Russia article needs a lot of work, especially with regards to neutrality, but in the end, I hope the end goal of this is to make the article stable and neutral enough to become standard encyclopedic material (that means to bring it up to Good Article and Featured Article status). - 祝好，Josephua^(聊天) 05:58, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose also. The Russian Orthodox Church is really getting a lot of attention, but mostly in the context of history and culture. There is only one state holiday related to this Church. It is Christmas which is also a state holiday in many secular countries. The percentage of orthodoxies in Russia is only 41 % which is shown in the article below which cannot allow to consider the Russian Orthodoxy as the state religion, in my opinion. Some regions and rebuplics inside Russia have a majorities of other religions (for example, Chechen Republic (Chechnya) with its 95 % Islam's majority and the corresponding culture). Moreover, the Orthodox Church does not have "the right to decide which other religions or denominations are to be granted the right of registration" which is claimed in the current revision of the article since in this case the official registration of the pastafarianism in Russia would be highly unlikely, but this registration holds. In my opinion, it is better to write this section of the infobox in the following format: most popular religions (including "No affiliation") with their percentanges (as in Germany and the United States articles) + mention that Russia is secular country according to the Constitution. This will show the most influent religious organizations in Russia (including the Russian Orthodox Church), but will not violate the WP:Neutrality principle. Anton-rigin (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The above reasoning appears solid to me. See Religion in Russia allows for nuanced details to be covered, and comports with the general standard for this situation as seen in other articles of the exact same type while promoting article stability. 74.73.230.72 (talk) 19:32, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose For the reasons stated above. Just adding my vote. SageSolomon (talk) 02:48, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

This is a horribly put together page and must be changed,

Edits still blocked despite overwhelming inconsistencies and biases, for example Crimea being included (as it should) in the population figures, but not in land area figures. This is absurd. The total land area of the Russian Federation is 17,125,246 sq km EranMonkcom (talk) 10:24, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@EranMonkcom: I believe the reason why it is like this because Russia censuses include Crimea's population as Russia believes it to be part of the country, and that the only source we rely on to get the population data is the Russian census. For land area, we can rely on other sources instead of a source provided by the Russian government, and these sources tend to not include Crimea because they internationally recognize Crimea as to be part of Ukraine than Russia. - 祝好，Josephua^(聊天) 14:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

That actually makes a lot of sense on the Crimea bit. If the only example of inconsistencies and biases are those having to do with Crimea, than problem solved. Unless EranMonkcom has any more examples? O.O SageSolomon (talk) 02:50, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

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Population Dispute

User:IntercontinentalEmpire has recently made some changes to the population statistic, which have been reverted. If Intercontinental could explain their reason for the changes here, that would be appreciated. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:14, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I added it in because it is accurate, other users have denounced this information but i assure everyone, Russia's population isn't declining, I've seen many sources on this and most of them say they halted their decline. It can even be described on the page where they show declining countries. Russia is on the halted population declines list. Please ubderstand, that i'm trying to give as accurate facts as possible, only certain areas of Russia are declining, not as a whole. Take St Petersburg for example, the urban area in the city has increased since 2015 and proceeds a positive growth. Even Moscow and the Tyumen areas are growing. The death rate is highly outdated because the birth rate did in fact increase. I have used the sources as fairly as possible and i'd appreciate it if accurate information is present. Some of you might think that i'm just doing it to support Russia, cause a huge disturbance in the media or even spread lies myself, that is not my goal. It is far from what i'm looking for, i promise to find the best facts and share them with our learning community. Also i should mention that in early January when the Russia page had 2019 records on population, they were in fact accurate but a group of people one day approached me saying it's wrong, it isn't, other pages can even say it. Even without Crimea, they grew from 144-145 million, tell me that's not positive. The sources they used i have also heard complaints about accuracy, it's true, things are not all of what they seem. Again, i would appreciate it if the page is reverted and sustained, if we can find a solution to this, i'd be more than happy to listen and possibly answer to it. Thank you for reading, IntercontinentalEmpire — Preceding unsigned comment added by IntercontinentalEmpire (talk • contribs) 02:57, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

IntercontinentalEmpire, You discuss many sources, could you link some of them here?

In my own quick perusal of sources, I found [1], [2], and [3], all from just last September, that discuss Russia's continued population decline. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:14, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, if in January 2019 Russia had a population of 146,780,720 people, and in January 2020 it had a population of 146,745,098. then it is a decline by 35,622 (146,780,720-146,745,098=35,622). It is a very, freakingly very simple, actually elementary-school level, math, like 2+2=4. It doesn't necessary matter if some regions' population grew up (in part due to inter-regional migration, from one region of Russia to another - do I need to say, that inter-regional migration doesn't affect nationwide population numbers, because it is a classical +X+(-X)=0 situation). If overall population declined, then there is a decline in overall national population - and this is what shown in the country's infobox. --Seryo93 (talk) 09:58, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

That's it, i'm walking away from the situation, this community has insulted me for the last time, if you don't need me giving you information, so be it. I've tried time and time again to give you guys something, instead you trash it and denounce me about it. Good day!

The real "offense" and "insulting" started earlier, with edit-wars and accusations of other users as "feeding people lies". And looking at https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/russia-population/ makes me wonder a bit. What is 145,530,082 population number in 2017? Population with Crimea? Then it means some 1,274,290 (!) less than Rosstat's report (http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/population/demo/Popul2017.xls). Population without Crimea? Then it is 1,066,631 (!) people more than GKS reported. Population without Republic of Crimea? Strange (and pretty fringe - one usually either includes or excludes all two Crimean federal subjects, but not only one), but even in that extremely unlikely case we arrive at discrepancy of 637,878 people. --Seryo93 (talk) 07:16, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Once and for all. The only reliable and in fact the only one source for the demographic data of Russia is the Federal Statistics Service. Any other source gathers information from there, so in case of any discrepancy it's either an outdated data, or a pure speculation. Gradoved (talk) 12:15, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, it is getting out of hand: one of 2019 estimates (and quite preliminary, given that their later report reports different number, 146780720 instead of 146781095 - note also an asterisk note in https://www.gks.ru/storage/mediabank/Popul2019.xls) is presented as 2020 estimate just because linked to a page of quite unreliable (not a statistical source, just "background remarks in passing") for that topic source, in which the 2019 population is undated (unless counting "Project year 2019" as date of creation of that page, that is, the page was created in 2019 and reflected then-actual numbers); URL is replaced without altering visible citation (to make it look like 2020 estimate?)... And all that happens just because editor in question attempts to hide population decline at all costs. If this will repeat, I will have no other choice but to report to WP:ANI or similar venue. Bests, --Seryo93 (talk) 08:22, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Russia christianity country??

which constitution do they take, you name it America is also a Christian country because Christian domination is there ??! Michealbrown51 (talk) 09:08, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Equality of the names

Since the Constitution states that "The names 'Russian Federation' and 'Russia' shall be equal", wouldn't it be more appropriate to start the article with "Russia (...), or the Russian Federation" rather than "Russia (...), officially the Russian Federation"? That's because the current wording might confuse as it factually states that Russia is unofficial name of the country, ergo the names are not equal which is not the case. Gradoved (talk) 10:14, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

 Done. Bests, --Seryo93 (talk) 17:12, 8 February 2020 (UTC)