Talk:List of equipment used by Russian people's militias in Ukraine

Quanities

Quite alot of the equipment have sources that simply state something like "one or two seen here and there", does it make sense to then specify the quanity like it has been done in lot of the vehicle sections? J.K Nakkila (talk) 16:40, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Given the scope of the article, particularly as most of information has been gleaned from WP:BIASED sources from both sides, and the fact that we are not listing equipment used by a huge army (this is regional warfare by separatists), my take is that it would be misleading to avoid numbers of weapons using WP:INLINE citations. To simply present the equipment without qualifying that it is warfare on a small scale using whatever comes to hand would lead to POV assumptions about the scale and nature of the war. The number of heavy artillery pieces is of great significance when we are only aware of extremely small numbers being identified and/or captured. It should be made evident that this is not warfare on the scale of the invasion of Iraq. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:49, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't really see why we coulnd't just say the same in the notes without giving specific numbers. When we put specific numbers to the quanities, even when sources do not tell specific numbers, it gives the false impression that its some kind of accurate estimate of numbers of the weapon in question. This is even more true when the editors change the total number based on different sources, as in T-72 section. Couple seen there, some destroyed later, but we can't really tell if the destroyed vechicles were the same as spotted before since the sources do not say so. J.K Nakkila (talk) 17:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I do see your point. At the moment, however, I'm stretched across a huge number of articles trying to archive references and translate them before they're lost. I only get to this one from time to time and it's low on my priority list. I'll have to do this in bits and pieces in order to translate the relevant text and add it as an inline quote to the footnotes. Oh, well. I'll put it on my list of longer term projects. Cheers! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Iskander

Do we have any other sources that in Donbass operates Iskander other than one Azov commander once said so? Does not seem very reliable source. And if it needs to be listed, why could it not be listed as ukrainian claim if there are no other sources of this? (it was marked as such, but this got deleted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.47.107.241 (talk) 22:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I have noted and reverted the according to Ukrainian sources additions. As you're not a static IP, I would suggest that you get an account: it's difficult to maintain any collaborative clean ups with dynamic IP addresses, or who edit from different computers or internet connections. You may have noted that I've tagged the entire article as needing better sources considering that I'm having to find where photos have been sourced and try to work out whether they are reliable sources or not. This is in order to avoid WP:TAGBOMBING the article and/or attributing every entry WP:INLINE while I find where the images were sourced; where POV blogs are used as sources; translate the sources; etc.

If you'd like to assist, I'd be extremely grateful if you could find the articles images in the references came from instead of 'Ukrainian claim', 'Russian claim', 'Pro-Russian separatist claim' plus other POV 'claim' disclaimers (please read WP:CLAIM as to why these aren't acceptable). If I find that all of the sources are unreliable, I'll remove poorly sourced and dubious information once I've double-checked the sources in order to find better ones.

In the meantime, I've tagged the Iskander for needing a better source, but don't wish to do so with absolutely every entry. Thank you for your understanding. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 02:19, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Unreliable sources

This article uses some sources aimed at trying to prove, that all the separatists' equipment was captured exclusively from the Ukrainian forces and didn't come from Russia. For example the Lost Armour site is highly dubious. Apparently, it is maintained by the separatists (or their supporters).

Many of the links are also quoting separatists and come from Russian state-owned news agencies like RIA Novosti. These are biased sources, of course, as Russia denies involvment in the Ukrainian war.

For example, the biased sources never mention of exclusively Russian equipment seen and filmed in use by DPR and LPR forces, like:

• BPM-97
• GAZ Vodnik
• BM-21 "Grad" (2B26) on KamAZ-5350 chassis

All of these items were developed in Russia after Soviet Union break down. All of them are not in service in any of the Ukrainian forces. --Amakuha (talk) 12:25, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I was incorrect about the Lost Armour site. It has two different pages:

• List of captured armour
• List of destroyed armour

The latter indeed lists exclusively Russian equipment which was destroyed in Ukraine, like T-72B tank modifications with "Kontakt-5" armour (namely T-72B3, T-72BA and T-72B mod. 1989). --Amakuha (talk) 13:23, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That's right. I never tried to "prove that all separatists' equipment was captured exclusively from the Ukrainian forces". Why do you think I added the BPM-97 to the list? All I am trying to do is show the truth, and that includes listing the equipment that was also captured from Ukrainian forces. But people immediately assume that it must be biased, come on now... SkoraPobeda (talk) 16:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

(a) I didn't talk about you. (b) Still, the list (and the amounts) of captured armour needs to be taken with caution. --Amakuha (talk) 06:16, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

A recent quote regarding the issue:

Such reports of captured "trophy" hardware were common at the time [Summer 2014] and we suspect that many were in fact disinformation, intended to provide plausible deniability to the presence of such weapons in separatist hands, supplied by Russia.

— Pierre Vaux, Catherine A. Fitzpatrick [1]

--Amakuha (talk) 10:38, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree, we should take it with caution. However, let us not forget that the Ukrainian government has always been hiding its armored losses. In the quote, it says we suspect that many of these trophies were in fact disinformation. What it doesn't mention is the fact that the summer of 2014 was one of the most violent periods of the war. The Ukrainian military lost dozens of armored vehicles with the "southern kettle" next to the border with Russia in July, and the "Ilovaisk kettle" in August. These kettles were barely reported on until recently in Debaltseve. The Ilovaisk kettle exposed an empty and unprotected area in the south, which allowed the rebels to make a counter-offensive towards Novoazovsk. The Ukrainian government tried to cover their losses by creating a media hysteria of a covert Russian invasion, and of course every "reliable" source out there was only reporting on this. These reports of a Russian invasion were backed only by the clear evidence of Russian-made vehicles such as the T-72. No doubt that Russia is supplying the rebels. What should be focused on is the fact that the Ukrainian Chief of Staff, Viktor Muzhenko, recently admitted that they are fighting just separatists, and that there are no regular Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, only Russian volunteers. [2] [3] SkoraPobeda (talk) 17:55, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see a contradiction here. The August 2014 Russian offensive was covert (just as you wrote), while there are no regular Russian troops. The widely reported scheme on which Russian professional soldiers go to Ukraine is: 1) taking a vacation; 2) or officially quitting the army.[4] (Besides, there are cases when regular Russian soldiers were caught in Ukraine.[5]) --Amakuha (talk) 23:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Could we please avoid turning a constructive discussion about the content of the article into a bit of a soapbox? Any sources we can reasonably deem to be considered reliable, but most likely to be WP:BIASED must be attributed per WP:INTEXT (that is, state who the source is/sources are) so that the reader knows where the information is coming from. Unfortunately, for a list of this type (i.e., not something that is followed by Anglophone English media in detail), the information is going to come from biased sources or it won't exist here at all. What this means is that the onus is on us to be as discriminating as possible as to the sources: meaning blogs (unless by a reputable specialist), forums and self-published sources (except for statements from the separatist official sites) are out. Cheers for the moment! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Pantsir-S1

Hi,

Many people here are probably wondering about the presence of the Pantsir-S1 in Ukraine. Although there are those who claim that multiple sources support such a presence, a closer look at the sources themselves will show that the information is too controversial to be supported by such few sources.

The following sources are used to "support" the "fact" that the Pantsir-S1 is in Ukraine:

• Armament Research Services (ARES)
• Jane's International
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Business Insider
• Bellingcat Vehicles

It appears as if there are at least five sources that support the claim. Since the claim is very controversial, multiple sources must be given for such a claim to stay according to WP:FRINGE. But let's have a closer look.

ARES: Although this is a reliable source, the Armament Research Services themselves explicitly made it clear that they themselves cannot verify this inquiry and only mentions it as a possiblity. There is also a usage of sources like social media and YouTube which are not reliable despite ARES normally being a reliable source.

Jane's International: This is a very reliable source and should never be considered otherwise. In fact, this reliable source explicitly said that "this cannot be independently verified by IHS Jane's".

Foreign and Commonwealth office: This is a reliable source. However, one reliable source isn't enough to keep such an extremely controversial claim.

Business Insider: This source cites the Foreign and Commonwealth office and is therefore not considered an additional source.

Bellingcat Vehicles: It's not clear if this is a reliable source at all. Even if it is, then you have a total of two sources that support the claim of the Pantsir-S1 in Ukraine. This is not the "multiple" needed for a controversial claim.

Khazar (talk) 01:19, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Important side note: This qualifies as an expectional claim since the majority of the mainstream media has not even covered this story, multiple high-quality sources are required. Khazar (talk) 01:32, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

What you are writing is not entirely true. ARES has recently updated its report about Pantsir-S1 seen in video in Luhansk. It stated:

A video brought to our attention shows a Pantsir-S1 being driven down a highway in Lugansk, Ukraine, a little over a week ago. The location was verified through comparison of landmarks using Yandex maps.

ARES has also uploaded a copy of the original video to YouTube with caption:

A video showing the Pantsir-S1 air defence system on a major road in Lugansk, Ukraine.

(Anyone can indeed verify the claim himself. The location is 48.546240, 39.331236. Direction of movement is South-Eastern. The street can be easily recognized at Yandex Street View).

So ARES has obviously recognized presence of Pantsir-S1 in Ukraine.

Bellingcat Vehicles is a dedicated independent reliable resource about movements of weapons around Russian-Ukrainian border. It verifies all the geolocations through a review process. And it currently has two geolocated sightings of Pantsir-S1 (one in Luhansk and one in Makiivka).

Foreign and Commonwealth Office is another reliable source, which uses the two sources above. It most probably means that the Office verified the evidence and considers it convincing enough to safely make a "controversial" statement, which would likely harm its relationships with Russia (especially if the claim was false).

So we have three reliable independent sources. How many more do you need? --Amakuha (talk) 02:32, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Ping User:Al Khazar I reverted the deletion. I don't think its perfect now but should be still included. Note that videos etc do not really qualify as a source, but IMO there are enough reliable sources (such as posted above) to say at least Pantsir is claimed to be seen withing rebel hands. J.K Nakkila (talk) 19:09, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

To be more precise, there is no evidence it was in rebel hands. It could have been operated by Russian soldiers. (Which is actually most likely, as Pantsir is a new complex system and training is needed in order to operate it.) --Amakuha (talk) 22:51, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Not true. YouTube is deemed as an unreliable source and its usage by ARES disqualifies it as a reliable source in this context. Also keep in mind that mentioning a YouTube video does not mean that it recognizes it as true. Jane's International mentioned the pictures as well but did not recognize them as fact and remained skeptical. All in all, you only have two sources to back up the bogus claims. Khazar (talk) 23:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

The reason why it's an exceptional claim is the fact that only Russia operates it. You only have two sources supporting these allegations and there is no reason to see Bellingcat as a high quality source. Khazar (talk) 23:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Ping User:J.K Nakkila That's in direct violation of WP:V. For an exceptional claim like this, multiple high quality sources are required and only two sources support this. One of them isn't even high quality. Khazar (talk) 23:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Khazar, there are primary sources (YouTube) and there are secondary sources (ARES, Bellingcat, The Foreign and Commonwealth Office). We use only secondaty here. If secondary independent reliable sources, like these three, make a conclusion that Pantsir-S1 was seen in Ukraine in at least two locations, I don't see any reason to not include it in the article.

However, if you know a Wikipedia rule, that says that secondary reliable sources become disqualified as reliable if they use YouTube for making a conclusion, please, point me to such a rule. Otherwise, please, avoid deletion of the information.

Moreover, the facts of sighting Pantsir-S1 in this table indeed has more and better references than most of other items in the table. So if we were to delete Pantsir-S1, we would also need to delete most of this article's content. For example, why would we consider Bellingcat Vehicles unreliable, and still use LostArmour.info, which is massively used in the article? How is LostArmour more reliable than Bellingcat? Both make analysis of images and videos from the conflict area.

Also, I don't see any reason to consider this a fringe theory, as it's widely believed that Russia supplies weapons to the separatists, including Russia's latest equipment such as BPM-97 (at least 10 seen in Ukraine), GAZ Vodnik, BTR-82AM, T-72B3, T-72BA and others, which are listed in the article. --Amakuha (talk) 11:30, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

How does citing Foreign and Commonwealth office somehow disqualify a source from being additional source? From WP:V "surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources", and here we have these publications covering the claim. Same thing with a source using Youtube, why wouldn't they be qualified to do resarch on that basis? And this thing would be included as a claim as I suggested (claimed to be seen... accoring to Foreign and Commonwealth Office... etc.), you could just as well add Jane's as a source aswell. J.K Nakkila (talk) 11:35, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Ping User:Iryna Harpy, I don't feel like the talk above waranted the deletion. Could you clarify here before you delete it? J.K Nakkila (talk) 23:15, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I was writing the following when I was called away IRL. Explanation below, so please self-revert your re-inclusion:

It's irrelevant how many unreliable sources you list. 50+ unreliable sources are not the equivalent of one RS. Please note that there was an RSN discussion of Bellingcat very recently. While there were reams of equivocation, Bellingcat found no consensus for being reliable and is not used as a reliable source in other article surrounding the Ukrainian crisis. Per Khazar's correct evaluation of WP:EXCEPTIONAL, I've reverted the entry for lack of anything resembling a reliable source.

As regards the use of YouTube footage, see WP:VIDEOREF: "If using the link as a source to support article content, then you must establish that the uploader and the video meet the standards for a reliable source.". That means that, if it's a self-published source with no secondary source evaluation, it's disqualified as an RS.

I've also reinstated the "reliable sources needed" tag which I'd added in October last year. As already noted, it doesn't matter how many unreliable sources are cited, it's only an op-ed piece which doesn't meet Wikipedia's rigorous criteria. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Youtube links were not used as a reference though, and Bellingcat was only one of the several links provided above. Reliable sources needed I agree with what it comes to Lost Armour though. J.K Nakkila (talk) 00:00, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Iryna Harpy, can you, please, explain how does this fall under WP:EXCEPTIONAL criteria? 1) It is widely believed, that Russia supplies weapons to separatists, including some of the latest Russian military equipment (see other Russian items in the article). 2) Appearance of Pantsir-S1 in Ukraine was not challenged by anyone, as far as I know. – So how is this WP:EXCEPTIONAL? Why appearance of T-72B3, for example, isn't "exceptional" then?

As was already noted above, Armament Research Services (ARES), which is considered an independent reliable source, recognized the appearance of Pantsir-S1 in Luhansk as "verified" [6]. Moreover, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom named the sightings as the "further proof of Russia's military involvement in the conflict" [7]. (Again, it was not challenged even by Russia.) So there are indeed multiple reliable sources supporting the claim. --Amakuha (talk) 00:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Also, please, note that Bellingcat and Bellingcat Vehicles are two different projects. There was no discussion about the latter one yet. The difference is that Bellingcat allows some room for opinion, while Bellingcat Vehicles just geolocates videos and images through a review process. It's hard to see any bias in that. At least for me. --Amakuha (talk) 01:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

How have you established that armamentresearch.com is a reliable source? Secondly, fact that Bellingcat Vehicles is an offshoot of Bellingcat makes it even more spurious as a source (uses public sightings, etc.). I've encountered "Business Insider Australia" before: it's not an established newspaper/journal/publication but a self-promotional business venture. Where is the actual British Foreign Office report? I've seen a twitter pic of something that could be a photoshop mock-up I could do myself. It's been a few days since that was published and, if it were reliably sourced, I have absolutely no doubt it would have hit the reliable sources by now. If it hasn't, then Wikipedia should not be using it. We're WP:NOTNEWS, and we're not WP:RECENTISM.

You're relying on unreliable sources. If you believe any of these sources to be genuinely reliable, take your queries and the context to the WP:RSN and ping me from there. We'll see how the community responds to these as RS. I am asking that you self-revert until you've established these sources to be reliable. As for the rest of the article, I haven't had time to check the sources but have no doubt that there are plenty of other instances of content that should be pulled from the list. Please don't pose "how come?" questions when I haven't examined the article's sources for ages, but the talk page has drawn my attention to the fact that the article really needs a serious looking over and there's at least one example of badly sourced information. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 02:41, 23 February 2015 (UTC)