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Requested move 24 February 2025

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Russian invasion of Ukraine → Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present) – Previous discussion has shown there is rough consensus that Russian invasion of Ukraine is no longer the ideal way to describe the subject of this article: the three-year period of hostilities in Ukraine and parts of Russia which began on 24 February 2022. Editors have generally agreed, especially following the events since 2024 in the Kursk province of Russia, that an article covering 2022–2025 ought to be titled war and not invasion. This also corresponds with the trends that one may find in sources (WP:COMMONNAME), which have increasingly abandoned the term invasion in favor of war to refer to the events currently taking place, as well as the events of the past three years as a whole.

If disambiguation with Russo-Ukrainian War becomes necessary as a result of this move, I propose moving that page to Russo-Ukrainian War (2014–present). As a result, Russo-Ukrainian War (2014–present) and Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present) will exist simultaneously for a temporary period of time during which separate discussions will be had on how to proceed.

A word to the wise: if you have proposals to change the scope of this or other articles, or to rename other articles, please save your suggestions for later. Previous experience has shown that everyone seems to have their own different convoluted plan on how to rearrange titling and scope across multiple articles. Such tangents will only serve to diverge our positions and derail the conversation. We can sort the rest out in future discussions; let us try in this RM to take the first step by staying focused on what I think many of us agree on, which is that invasion is no longer the appropriate term for an article covering 2022–2025. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 08:00, 24 February 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPathtalk 09:29, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]


Comments

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  • Support Russia–Ukraine war for this article and Russia–Ukraine conflict for the broader article covering events since 2014. Two things there: First, "Russo-Ukrainian" is a Wikipedian invention; combining forms have not been standard in English for decades unless used in historical contexts. Second, Russia and Ukraine have not been at war since 2014, and no sources say that they do. The vast majority of reliable sources (as proven at length in the prior discussion) explicitly consider February 24, 2022, to be the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine. It would be the equivalent of Wikipedia having an article titled "World War" covering the events of a "war" spanning 1914 to 1945. Russia and Ukraine were at war when Russia invaded Crimea and 2014 until the Donbas cease-fire in 2015. They have been at war again since 2022 when Russia invaded again. Those two wars are linked in the same conflict but in no way are they a single continuous war, and I ask any editors suggesting otherwise to provide sources other than Wikipedia that back up the assertion that the current war in Ukraine began not three years ago but eleven. DecafPotato (talk) 10:16, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would rather not raise the question of whether or not the events since 2014 should be called a war or a conflict in this RM. Start a discussion on the other article if you would like it to be moved. I have no strong views on the issue myself but there is definitely a faction of editors who will be salivating to dispute your assertions here. I ask that they resist the temptation. My goal is for us to judge the merits of renaming a single article, not two or three of them at once. If we make things more complicated, the outcome of no consensus becomes much more likely, and the status quo, which we agree is problematic, persists.
    That said, Russia–Ukraine instead of "Russo-Ukrainian" has my endorsement. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 10:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The vast majority of reliable sources (as proven at length in the prior discussion) explicitly consider February 24, 2022, to be the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine
    Actually, the opposite is true. Academic sources say the war has started Feb 2014. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 10:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    See below for the long, long list of academic sources defining 24 February 2022 as the start of the war and the time before that as "pre-war". Additionally, this is not primarily an academic topic, so I don't see why academic sourcing should automatically be favoured over, e.g., high-quality broadsheets like the Times/NYT/Guardian or broadcasters like the BBC, who overwhelmingly use the term "Russia-Ukraine war" to refer to something that began in 2022. Similarly, other encyclopaedias also tend to refer to this being a war that began in 2022 (e.g., Britannica). FOARP (talk) 14:07, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is a short list of ten poorly curated and indiscriminately chosen sources specifically intended to push a view. Your very first source's topic area is 'airline stock prices'. It is completely irrelevant for this article. Several others have no subject matter relevance either. Hell, one of your sources makes the utterly ridiculous statement that this war is Russia's 'first invasion attempt' of Ukraine. And its topic area is the financial markets of the Asia-Pacific region. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:51, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    On the contrary, these are statistical analyses where (unlike in other fields where this can be obfuscated) it is important to define a start-date for the war. They (together with the overwhelming majority of with high-quality news media, which we have to ignore for some reason?) universally identify 24 February 2022 as the start of the present war.
    Pooh-poohing analysis *of the war* on airline stock prices, or on Asia markets and other areas, just shows a lack of understanding of the extent of the impact of this war in the economic, medical, environmental, and agricultural fields.
    But OK, let's repeat this analysis today using the first page of Wikipedia Library search engine results for "Russia-Ukraine war" and see which war they are referring to. My search results are as follows:
That is 30 results, all published after the beginning of the war, in reliable sources, selected randomly and not cherry-picked, 27 of which are articles in academic journals (two are opinion-pieces/news, one is a correction), and not a single one of these journal articles is referring to the Russia-Ukraine war as something that begun in 2014. Instead, overwhelmingly they treat 24 February 2022 as the start of the present war.
It is very hard to understand why we are supposed to ignore both the reports in high-quality news-media *AND* the output of academics writing in reputable journals on this.FOARP (talk) 07:10, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A Google search for Russia-Ukraine war and "2014" has hundreds of thousands of results with numerous sources saying that the war started in 2014. – Asarlaí (talk) 12:21, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry to tell you this, but I think you need to learn more about how Google works. The first thing to understand is that the number of hits it reports is rarely very accurate (the reality is it only return 24 pages of results, so roughly 247 hits). The second is that the hits will include sources that aren't reliable (e.g., there's a lot of Youtube videos in there). The third is that the result will include results that merely mention the search terms. In the case of the search you've just made, the first five hits are two Wikipedia articles, a House of Commons article saying the war began in 2022, a Britannica article saying the war started in 2022, and a CFR article that is at best equivocal on when the war starter. FOARP (talk) 15:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We also have lots of academic sources in the first line of Russo-Ukrainian War#History, many of which were originally added by myself. The link to the Google search was simply to show there are many more sources of various kinds. – Asarlaí (talk) 15:35, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but many of those sources don't actually say what you're using them to say and/or aren't reliable, independent sources. Taking those sources in turn:
Can you see what the issue is with these? FOARP (talk) 15:57, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, we aren't reading sources which say the war has started in 2014, and claim otherwise :)
War in Ukraine - Google Books First, what we often call “the Ukraine War” didn’t start in February 2022, even if that is when its most intense, calamitous, and globally resonant phase began. Just as Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 was the prologue to its all- out invasion of China in 1937, the war between Ukraine and Rus sia began in 2014 with Vladimir Putin’s taking of Crimea and his intervention— first through proxies and then with regular forces—in the Donbas. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 17:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, can you see how the author there is arguing against what they tacitly acknowledge is a consensus? The consensus is that the Sino-Japanese war started in 1937 (incidentally, that’s also what our article on the topic says). A “prologue” is not necessarily the start of something, it is the thing that comes before the start. FOARP (talk) 06:07, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, we aren't reading the source and claim otherwise :)
just stick to what it says. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 10:23, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is a policy requirement to cite sources directly relevant to the article topic. The example sources aren't analysing the war, they are analysing their respective fields during the period of the war. These are distinct topics. Consequently, citing sources that have no subject matter relevance to build this case is a problem. Many of the cited sources aren't about the conflict, but use it as a backdrop for their relevant subject matter. They aren't RS here; they are RS elsewhere. If it isn't a source that could be used to write this article, it certainly isn't a source that could be used to determine its scope (this discussion is only ostensibly about the title). Moreover, I won't consider a source that has basic factual errors about a subject it discusses in passing.
The above "statistical analysis" – employing terminology without grasping it (ctrl+f-ing through the first page of Google or Wikipedia Library is not a statistical analysis and a data set of 10 or 30 for a subject with thousands of available just academic sources is unacceptably tiny to call it one) – has the same problem as the last one. It's a grab bag of sources, many of which are not germane. The approach is fundamentally flawed and unserious. You're arguing elsewhere against SME sources that don't align with your stance, whilst defending sources containing basic errors about this subject that do.
You are asking to have treated Antonio Miguel Martins, an assistant professor of Economics at Madeira University with a PhD in management with the same weight as Gwendolyn Sasse, a political scientist, Director of Eastern Europe and International studies, and professor for the Comparative Study of Democracy and Authoritarianism focussing specifically on the history of the Soviet Union at Humboldt University in Berlin. One is an SME for this subject area and one has no relevant background. That is the stark qualitative difference in sourcing presented in an indiscriminate list and carefully selected SME sources. Mr rnddude (talk) 13:03, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, from my perspective what's happened is this:
  1. I produce high-quality WP:RSNP news-media sources overwhelmingly reporting 24 February 2022 as the start of the present war.
  2. Response: "news media doesn't count, only academic sources count".
  3. I produce academic sources in reputable journals, all of which are clearly - as is shown by the article-titles - writing about various aspects of the present war, that overwhelmingly report 24 February 2022 as the start of the present war. I then also review the first ten hits in the journal Survival which is clearly germane to the field of international politics and warfare even if you think that academics in other fields writing about the impact of the war in their field isn't relevant.
  4. Response: "those are the wrong academics, only academics saying the exact thing I want to say count".
Can you see why this seems like possibly not an entirely fair process? FOARP (talk) 15:25, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
# Response: "those are the wrong academics, only academics saying the exact thing I want to say count".
No, the response is - It is a policy requirement to cite sources directly relevant to the article topic. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 17:33, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, and I went through the first ten hits of a journal (Survival) that is presumably germane - because it’s the one you selected - and they all reflect the viewpoint that this war started in 2022. FOARP (talk) 06:10, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we ignore the argument - it stays. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 10:26, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of WP:COMMONNAME. The overwhelming majority of reliable, independent sources describe the present conflict as a war that began on 24 February 2022. To see that this is true you need only look at all of the articles being published today discussing "three years of war" in high-quality news media. This includes the BBC, Guardian, New York Times, Newsweek, Al Jazeera, CNN, Sky News (etc. etc.). Indeed, if you go down the sources listed as highly reliable at WP:RSNP, if they cover Ukraine, they will have an article out today talking about this war having last three years. This isn't a recent change either, last year there were many, many articles in high-quality sources about the "1000th day of the war" and similar:
That this is the primary topic for Russia-Ukraine war can be seen by comparing the number of articles covering 24 February as the anniversary of the war with those covering 27 February (the anniversary of the start of the 2014-15 war). 24 February massively predominates regardless of the source consulted.
It is completely artificial to insist that only academic sources should be considered when considering what the common-name is here, since this is not primarily an academic topic yet but instead a military/diplomatic one, however academia also largely considers this a war that began in 2022. This can be seen in academic articles published since 2022 which define 24 February 2022 as the "start of the war" and the period before that as "pre-war" including the following:
In terms of accuracy this clearly is a war, and not just an invasion of Ukraine, since the conflict has long since spread outside the borders of Ukraine in to the Black Sea and within Russia. In terms of conciseness, "Russia-Ukraine War" is shorter than the present title. "Russia-Ukraine" should be favoured over "Russo-Ukrainian" as reliable sources tend to use the former (see above for many examples of this, and also Ngrams though this only extends to 2022).
In terms of what to do with the existing Russo-Ukrainian war article, I favour the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russo-Ukrainian conflict or the Russo-Ukrainian war (2014-2022) solutions (in declining order). If there is not a consensus for Russia-Ukraine war (either with or without disambiguation by year) then I support Russo-Ukrainian war (either with or without disambiguation) as an improvement over the existing title. FOARP (talk) 12:14, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the list of academic sources that define the start of the war as Feb 2014, please refer to Russo-Ukrainian War#History. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 12:49, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, you're going to have to do better than simply making a generic hand-wave in the direction of data that mostly pre-dates 2022. This is particularly the case when that page presently has a link to a Britannica page entitled "Russia-Ukraine War [2022–present]". FOARP (talk) 13:35, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
a generic hand-wave in the direction of data that mostly pre-dates 2022
Russo-Ukrainian War#History
ManyAreasExpert (talk) 13:43, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Many Ukrainians" - so, not necessarily the view of the source, or from a reliable source, or representative of the common name in English. Additionally no-one is saying that the 2014-15 conflict wasn't a war, only that when people say "Russia-Ukraine War", the conflict that began in 2022 is the one being referred to.
"I decline the temptation to identify the date of February 24, 2022, as its beginning..." - This is hardly a round rejection of it being so. It practically acknowledges that this is/can be identified as the start of the war. FOARP (talk) 13:58, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally no-one is saying that the 2014-15 conflict wasn't a war, only that when people say "Russia-Ukraine War", the conflict that began in 2022 is the one being referred to.
There are sources which say the war started in 2022, and there are sources which say it started in 2014. And there is no contradiction in this. Note that sources which discuss the broader event horizon, including 2014 events, do acknowledge the war started in 2014. The thing is, sources do consider events which started in 2022 as the "war" - a full-scale war. This 2022 war is part of the broader event which started in 2014, and which sources also characterize as "war". That's what we should represent in our articles. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:19, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, this is an editor-constructed analysis, not something the sources have said. This is the entire problem with the way this issue has been approached - the reality is they haven't necessarily thought things through in the way you describe. Instead, they report on what is happening and what has happened, and that is undeniably that today is being marked as the third anniversary of this war, whilst 27 February will go by largely unremarked, and not as the "11th anniversary of the war".
But let's see what we should do if you are right: then we should follow WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and see which is the most prominent "war" - and we will find that it is undeniable that the war that began on 24 February 2022 is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Russia-Ukraine war". FOARP (talk) 14:27, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Instead, they report on what is happening and what has happened, and that is undeniably that today is being marked as the third anniversary of this war
Those are media sources discussing the 2022 full-scale invasion, which brought much more press and academic attention than 2014 events.
Nevertheless, discussing the naming of Russo-Ukrainian War, we should pay attention to the sources that discuss wide perspective of events that started in 2014 and call those "war".
Sorry, this is an editor-constructed analysis, not something the sources have said.
What do you mean? Ukraine and Russia - Google Books ... Therefore, almost no one predicted the limited war of 2014, or (until it was imminent) the much larger war of 2022. War was certainly not seen as inevitable. Does Russia's massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 represent a continuation of the war that began in 2014 or does it represent an overturning of that strategy? ... ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You cannot use a source questioning whether something is true as confirmation that it is true, particularly when the source clearly describes two wars, one of which is much larger and thus more prominent ("the limited war of 2014, or ... the much larger war of 2022"). The present war is overwhelmingly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Russia-Ukraine war and thus should predominate over other topics. FOARP (talk) 14:43, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You cannot use a source questioning whether something is true as confirmation that it is true)
The source is referring to the war of 2014 as the limited war of 2014, and the war of 2022 as the much larger war of 2022 no questions.
particularly when the source clearly describes two wars, one of which is much larger and thus more prominent ("the limited war of 2014, or ... the much larger war of 2022")
The present war is overwhelmingly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC
Even if true, it's not a justification to call Russo-Ukrainian War a "conflict". ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:55, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Manyareasexpert: We (and reliable sources) call the Israeli–Palestinian conflict a conflict even though it consists of significant armed violence, and, indeed, multiple full-on wars within it. Renaming the article currently titled "Russo-Ukrainian War" to "Russia–Ukraine conflict" isn't somehow denying that the War in Donbas and "Russia–Ukraine war"/"Russian invasion of Ukraine" are wars in and of themselves. Sources calling the War in Donbas a "war" don't support your position at all, and indeed only further the point that the 2014–present thing is a "conflict", because long-running interstate conflicts almost always contain multiple wars (whether it be the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and, say, First Nagorno-Karabakh War and Second Nagorno-Karabakh War ...... or the Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza War (2008–2009), and 2014 Gaza War .... and I can go on). DecafPotato (talk) 11:37, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sources calling the War in Donbas a "war"
We aren't talking about this. The subject of discussion is the war which started in Feb 2014 with Crimea invasion. See Russo-Ukrainian War#History for sources. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:55, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Flemmish Nietzsche, just to be clear are you supporting Russia-Ukraine war or a different title (e.g., Russo-Ukrainian war as in the OP)? Do you have a view about what to do with the article presently at Russo-Ukrainian war? FOARP (talk) 15:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm neutral on the Russia-Ukraine/Russo-Ukrainian issue; in my view Russo-Ukrainian War should be moved to Russo-Ukrainian conflict to eliminate any confusion as to "wars inside of wars" and adhere to sources saying that the war as a whole began in 2022. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 16:20, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support "Russia-Ukraine war" (with or without "2022-present") as that is more in line with the naming used by reliable sources. Compare a Google search of "Russo-Ukrainian war" with "Russia-Ukraine war" and you'll see that Russo-Ukrainian war is a name primarily used by Wikipedia itself (and the corresponding article is the first result). Meanwhile, a search for "Russia-Ukraine war" results in the "Top Stories" section being generated by Google, and the first actual result is an ABC News article that came out 2 hours ago (with the result after that being Wikipedia's Russo-Ukrainian War article). In addition to ABC News, we also have sources such as the New York Times, AP, The Telegraph, NBC News, Newsweek, and Al Jazeera. International organizations such as Human Rights Watch also refer to a Russia-Ukraine war. Reuters uses the name "Ukraine Russia war" in their URL, and their subheading states "Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started the deadliest war on European soil..." which implies that their view is that the invasion and the war are separate. While the BBC refers to the "Ukraine War" in the section on their website, the short description for the website's Google search result is "Follow the latest news about the Russia Ukraine war." Something similar is the case for The Guardian and The Economist. Separately, I agree with OP that we should not broaden the scope of this discussion too much. Let's focus on this article's name for now. We can worry about how to change other things in a separate discussion. Let's change this article's name to Russia-Ukraine war for now, and then other issues regarding scope or other articles can be addressed afterward. --JasonMacker (talk) 17:10, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We have already main page on this subject, Russo-Ukrainian War (yes, it better to be renamed to "Russia-Ukraine war"). However, it was a very different low-intensity war (or a military conflict) before 2022. The actual large-scale war started only in 2022. Making this just a period of the same war seems a little misleading. In addition, the suggested title places Russia and Ukraine on "an equal footing", just as two sides in a conflict as the new title implies. This is not true. This is actually a Russian invasion, as the current title says. It was an invasion in 2022, and it is still an invasion right now, although both "war" and "invasion" wordings were widely used in sources (sure, this is a war and an invasion at the same time). I think the clarity in the title is especially important given the recent attempts by the Trump administration to label Ukraine as the perpetrator. My very best wishes (talk) 17:29, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @My very best wishes: You seem to be opposing the original proposal. What's your opinion on the alternative (this to Russia-Ukraine War and Russo-Ukrainian War to Russo-Ukrainian conflict)? 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 17:47, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You need to distinguish between invasion, war, and occupation. There is no invasion that is currently happening. Instead, Russia is occupying large parts of Ukraine, while Ukraine is occupying a small part of Russia (in Kursk). Separate from this, there is a state of war with a clearly defined front. As I pointed out in my comment in a different section of the talk page, consider the German_invasion_of_Denmark_(1940) article. The article states that the German invasion of Denmark lasted "six hours" and was subsequently followed by a German occupation. This idea that an invasion is an ongoing event spanning over three years where both sides of a conflict are fighting over a front that moves slowly is silly. That's not an invasion. That's a war. Of course, an invasion happened, but the subsequent events are not an invasion anymore and this article's title should reflect that. JasonMacker (talk) 17:56, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @JasonMacker - correct. The OED defines "invasion" as "The action of invading a country or territory as an enemy; an entrance or incursion with armed force; a hostile inroad". Similarly Merriam-Webster defines invasion as "an act of invading, especially : incursion of an army for conquest or plunder". An army is no longer clearly "invading" when it ceases to advance and is in long term occupation and/or is retreating. Referring to events happening now in 2025 in Ukraine as "invasion of Ukraine" just isn't correct English. None of this is to take away from the moral responsibility that Russia and its leadership has for this war of aggression: it is simply to correct the language used.
    @My very best wishes - I don't get how you write "We have already main page on this subject, Russo-Ukrainian War (yes, it better to be renamed to "Russia-Ukraine war"). However, it was a very different low-intensity war (or a military conflict) before 2022. The actual large-scale war started only in 2022. Making this just a period of the same war seems a little misleading." and then oppose the proposed move which corrects this problem. At present the article has the POV that the post-2022 conflict is just a phase in a war that has been going on since 2014, and the proposed move is designed to fix this. FOARP (talk) 18:56, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @JasonMacker. Yes, German forces quickly took over the entire of Denmark, following by the occupation. But this war is different: Russian forces failed to occupy the entire Ukraine, and they are still trying to invade as much as possible of the Ukrainian territory. And no, the war is not "static": Russian forces made significant territorial advances during last year. Therefore, the invasion is still ongoing. If not, when exactly did it stop? Other pages, such as 2003 invasion of Iraq, says: The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion began on 20 March 2003 and lasted just over one month.... Yes, but this is because USA forces have occupied the Iraq. What would be the time frame here? One month as for the Iraq? A year? There is no specific time frame because the invasion is still progressing. My very best wishes (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The operative example here is Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets did not take the entirety of Afghanistan, nor did the Russians take the entirety of Ukraine. The article redirects to the initial section following the 1979 coup d'état and going until the invasion stalled during the winter of 1979–80. The analogous stage of the war in Ukraine is, from a popular standpoint, from 24 February until 7 April, when the Russians withdrew from the Kyiv offensive, and from a military standpoint, until 13 May, when the Russians failed to cross the Donets and capture Sloviansk. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 21:04, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I see. But the Soviet forces and their Afghan allies did control most of the Afghanistan. Not so with Ukraine. My very best wishes (talk) 23:01, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There’s the Iran-Iraq war and World War I examples as well: both began with an invasion (Germany invading Belgium and France, Iraq invading Iran) but the invasion was just the initial phase of the war. FOARP (talk) 06:47, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know what your measure of "significant" is, but let's directly compare the map of today (this) with a map from a year ago (this). The main differences between the two maps are the Russian advance northwest of Donetsk, and Ukraine's advance on Kursk... these two almost cancel each other out in terms of territory gained, so the net shift is only slightly in favor of Russia. But otherwise, the maps are mostly the same. In contrast, during the actual Russian invasion, around February and March in 2022, the map in late February was wildly different from the map in late March, because the rapidly advancing (and retreating) Russian forces weren't staying on established front lines like they do today. In other words, the territorial gains of Russia between February 28 and March 30 in 2022 were larger than the territorial gains of Russia from February 2024 to February 2025 (1 year). That's why, at this point, I don't see how Russia's territorial gains in the past year can be seen as "significant". Russia's strategy by 2023 was to build trenches to defend their lines (in 2023!)... that's not what invading forces do. At some point, an invasion that does not successfully capture everything transitions to a "standard" war with established front lines. Again, if you look at the history of the battleground maps, you'll find what is basically today's lines in August 2023. The time frame should be when Russia began to build trenches and no longer was focused on invading new territory, because that's when the invasion ended. JasonMacker (talk) 15:45, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I respectfully disagree. Building trenches hardly means anything. No, these are actually very significant offensive/invasion operations and gains by the both Russian and Ukrainian forces. They do not "cancel" each other. Right now and during the coming months, there are significant opportunities for Russian forces to occupy a lot more, either through an aggreement (essentially a capitulation of the Ukrainians) pushed by Donald Trump, or just offensive operations during this summer, given that the Ukrainian forces are starved withoutammunition. My very best wishes (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There are exceptional circumstances where COMMONNAME can be disregarded. These are often when issues of ambiguity or naturalness arise. I think that applies here. It strikes me as odd to have one article titled "Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present)" and another titled "Russo-Ukrainian War (2014–present)", as it begs the question what exactly happened in 2022 that would necessitate such a split. The answer to that is quite clear: an invasion. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 which is precisely the reason for the current escalation. This should be made clear in the article title. JDiala (talk) 22:12, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@JDiala: You seem to be opposing the original proposal. What's your opinion on the alternative (this to Russia-Ukraine War and Russo-Ukrainian War to Russo-Ukrainian conflict)? 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 00:29, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as the scope of this article for a while has been the 2022–present phase of the broader Russo-Ukrainian war. I must caveat this: 2022 was an escalation and continuation of the war since 2014, so this article potentially changing names should not implicate the name of the broader umbrella article. Thus, I do not support renaming Russo-Ukrainian war as the proposal suggests. Furthermore, while this should come down the line as the proposal suggests, I would split out of this article an 'invasion' specific new article covering the invasion of 2022. Yeoutie (talk) 23:02, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support for Russo-Ukrainian War and move the parent article to Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Moreover, I think we should create an entire new article under the name Russian invasion of Ukraine that covers the first phase of the war from 24 February to 8 April 2022 (when the last Russian forces withdrew from northern Ukraine). Apart from the terrific source compilation above, I would like to argue the urgent necessity of this change on the ground of consistency with other historical events. Firstly, I have searched for all the Wikipedia articles that contain "invasion" on their title, and only this and the French invasion of Egypt and Syria have lasted for more than a year. Invasion appears to be reserved for short periods of quick advance of an army on a foreign country and not for a stalled trench war. The current title would be the equivalent of calling the Western Front (World War I) article "German invasion of France (1914–1918)". I think the best recent event we can take as a model is the Iran–Iraq War. An initial invasion, the front stalls in trench warfare, and cross border attacks ensuing for years. The cross border component is really important here. For instance, we currently have the Kursk front as a subset of the attacks in Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That would mean that the scope of the Russian invasion of Ukraine article covers Ukraine and Russia; this is a nonsense, and by the logic we are currently using, the Kursk article should be named Ukrainian invasion of Russia. In conclusion, the historical precedent suggests deprecating the word invasion in favor of War, and implementing the change would allow to better organize the spillover articles.
Basque mapping (talk) 23:45, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is Russia-Ukraine war acceptable to you? Sources appear to prefer this name (see, e.g., the Ngrams data above). FOARP (talk) 08:05, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@FOARP My personal preference stands in Russo-Ukrainian, but if the majority of sources use Russia–Ukraine (as it seems at this moment), then we must go with it. In any case, per MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES, the title must use a dash and not a hyphen. Basque mapping (talk) 18:04, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Basque mapping Note that in MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES, it would allow for Russo-Ukrainian with a hyphen because "Russo-" is not a complete word. Red0ctober22 (talk) 19:10, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The article should be split into 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (24 Feb–7 Apr 2022) and Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present). After a successful moving, the article now called Russo-Ukrainian War could be renamed Russo-Ukrainian conflict and this article (optionally) could be renamed to just Russo-Ukrainian War. Thus, the overall conflict starting in 2014 can be divided into following stages:
CapLiber (talk) 02:19, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose a renaming would probably require some splitting and I haven't seen any consistent, well-defined cut-off point for when the invasion became a war (also, a rhetorical question but how and when does an invasion become a war?). I'm not planning on taking much part in the above discussions or arguing/debating but thought it might help to post/rephrase these ideas/questions for consideration. Cheers, Dan the Animator 04:24, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's more of a question of when does it become clear that the goals set out by an invading side are not met. In this instance, a clearly defined goal was taking the capital city of Kyiv (the invading forces were in the northern outskirts of the city) and the second largest city Kharkiv (which was encircled). After a month of fighting, the Russians pulled of the northern Ukraine, and by 7 April they have focused all their forces in the Donbas and southern Ukraine, eventually forming what is todays frontline. It's not that the war starts after this realisation, but rather that the unsucessful invasion becomes a part of a larger war. For example, the German invasion of the Soviet Union started on 22 June 1941, but by December the failure to reach the goals set out by the Nazis became obvious, yet we still consider that the German-Soviet War (also known as the Eastern Front of WWII or as Great Patriotic War in the form. USSR) started in June. CapLiber (talk) 06:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "It's more of a question of when does it become clear that the goals set out by an invading side are not met."
    That has nothing to do with when the invasion/war started and it has nothing to do with what the name of the article should be.
    "For example, the German invasion of the Soviet Union started on 22 June 1941, ..., yet we still consider that the German-Soviet War (also known as the Eastern Front of WWII or as Great Patriotic War in the form. USSR) started in June."
    As we should, because Nazi Germany's goals or the attainment of those goals does not affect when the war/invasion started. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 10:42, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So your point is we can call all of WWII Eastern Front "Operation Barbarossa"? I don't think so. Is there an invasion going on? A consequence of one, surely, with Ukraine deterring the forces that wanted to invade all of the country and in turn invading some (minor) part of Russia. So "Russian invasion" is no longer relevant for describing all of the current war. My point was not that the failure of the German invasion meant that the German-Soviet War started after they failed with a quick offensive and taking Moscow, quite the opposite, they all started simultaniously on 22 June 1941 (which is how it is presented in the respective articles), but the "German invasion" lasted until December, when the Red Army defended Moscow and started counter-offensives against Wehrmacht. After that the war lasted for more than 3 years with the Russians then occupying whole Eastern European nations and finally parts of the invader country of Germany, although obviously the scale, however big it now is, is incomparible. Another example would be the Iran-Iraq War – the war started with the Iraqi invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980, after 2 months of a successful offensive, the invasion halted, but the war continued for the whole 7 years, with Iran then invading Iraq in response and Iraqis counter-attacking the Iranians. Again, nobody calls the whole 8 year-spanning war the "Iraqi invasion of Iran". I don't think I saw anybody else making that argument there, but that for me just seems as an undermining of Ukraine's sovereignty and effort at defending themselves to still call the war where they have shown that they are a considerable force in the region and can repel Russian attacks and themselves attack a "Russian invasion", as if the Russian army still marches through Ukraine which can barely defend itself, which is not the case. CapLiber (talk) 08:30, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I should note that my proposal did not advocate for splitting any part of this article or defining the end point of the invasion. That currently seems to be a minority view. I count three editors who have suggested it. I share your view that there is no well-defined date in sources representing an "end" to the invasion. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 12:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - This article isn't about the Russo-Ukrainian war in general, which began in 2014. It's about the ongoing Russian invasion since 2022. Russia is still invading Ukraine. I agree with My very best wishes - calling Russia's massive ongoing attack on Ukraine the "Russia-Ukraine war" wrongly implies that both sides are equally to blame and wrongly implies both sides have attacked eachother with the same intensity. That is not true.
It's especially important that we call this invasion what it is, and not use euphemisms, given the recent attempts to shift blame away from Russia. Yesterday (24 Feb 2025), the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating: "the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has persisted for three years and continues to have devastating and long-lasting consequences". It passed with 93 votes for and only 18 against. It was Russia and the Russia-friendly Trump administration who backed another version calling it the "Russia-Ukraine conflict".
Above, Manyareasexpert showed that academic sources agree the Russo-Ukrainian war began in 2014. It's common for news agencies to use short-hand names for things, because they need to be concise when writing headlines etc. But this is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. – Asarlaí (talk) 10:02, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are the proclamations of the UN a reliable, independent source? Additionally, Wikipedia is not about WP:RIGHTINGGREATWRONGS. I also sympathise strongly with Ukraine (EDIT: and I note Zelensky also has described this repeatedly as a war that began on 24 February 2022 - see the following speeches 1 2 3 ), but anyone can see that covering drone strikes in Novgorod, fighting in Kursk, and combat in the Black Sea, under the heading "invasion of Ukraine", makes no sense at all because those events aren't happening in Ukraine. Wikipedia is also not an academic journal - we use the common name in English, which at this point is clearly "Russia-Ukraine war", but even looking only at academic sources they overwhelmingly treat 24 February 2022 as the start-date of this war - see above for my analysis of the first 30 Wikipedia Library search hits, 27 of which are articles in academic journals. FOARP (talk) 10:26, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
sources they overwhelmingly treat 24 February 2022 as the start-date of this war
The sources you presented mostly cover the 2022 war. The sources which cover 2014 war do name it a war. The supposed prevalence you observe is because 2022 war is getting much more press and academic coverage. So you have an abundance of sources covering 2022 war and naming it a war, and you have much less amount of sources, but covering 2014 war, and naming it a war. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 10:54, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So in other words, this is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the term Russia–Ukraine war? SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 10:56, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fighting in Kursk and drone strikes in Russia are a direct result of, and response to, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There were no such attacks in Russia before it invaded Ukraine in 2022. – Asarlaí (talk) 11:04, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We are warned to be careful to not to prefer frequency towards correctness: Ambiguous[f] or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. WP:COMMONNAME. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:12, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would you oppose a move to war (2022–present), which uses the parenthetical element to avoid ambiguity? I do not see any arguments in favor of continuing to use the term invasion in your responses. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 11:18, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No opinion on this particular issue.
But when discussing the naming of the 2014 war, we should be operating corresponding sources which discuss 2014 war. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:23, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying your position on invasion vs. war. I was trying to avoid discussion of the 2014 article in this RM but I suppose they are inseparable. I do not see a particularly strong policy-based case to use conflict for 2014–present myself but it has received a fair amount of support here. Perhaps another RM or discussion should be started on that talk page, or a separate section created here, for ease of navigation and so that we can better understand where editors stand each individual question. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 11:35, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
it has received a fair amount of support here
Editors express their preferences, but only opinions supported with references to reliable sources should be considered. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:40, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In which case I've got to point out that the sourcing overwhelmingly says that the Russia-Ukraine war started on 24 February 2022. That includes all of the first 30 results on the Wikipedia Library academic journal search, and all of the WP:RSNP high-quality news media outlets with Ukraine coverage reviewed. Saying that it started on 27 February 2014 is a WP:FRINGE view typically stated whilst simultaneously acknowledging that 24 February 2022 is commonly considered the actual start-date. FOARP (talk) 11:48, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Saying that it started on 27 February 2014 is a WP:FRINGE
Let's see...
  • Sasse, Gwendolyn (2023). Russia's War Against Ukraine. Wiley & Sons. p. 2004. Russia's war against Ukraine began with the annexation of Crimea on 27 February 2014. On that day, Russian special forces without any uniform insignia appeared in Crimea, quickly taking control of strategic, military and political institutions.
  • Plokhy, Serhii (2023-05-09). The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. xxi. ISBN 978-1-324-05120-6. I decline the temptation to identify the date of February 24, 2022, as its beginning, no matter the shock and drama of the all- out Russian assault on Ukraine, for the simple reason that the war began eight years earlier, on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament.
  • Bacon, Edwin (2024). Contemporary Russia. Springer Nature. p. 12. ISBN 978-3-031-52423-3. The seizure of Crimea sparked the war with Ukraine; fought by separatists with Russian military support in the east of Ukraine from 2014, until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched by the Russian armed forces in 2022.
  • Arel, Dominique; Driscoll, Jesse (2023-01-05). Ukraine's Unnamed War: Before the Russian Invasion of 2022. Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-316-51149-7. The war had already claimed around 13,000 lives when Vladimir Putin made his historic decision, sometime in late 2021 or early 2022, to launch a full-scale military invasion to try to break Ukraine.
As said above, discussing the naming of 2014 war, corresponding sources should be used. Shouldn't this argument be repeated. Ambiguous[f] or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. WP:COMMONNAME. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:59, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Russia's war against Ukraine began with the annexation of Crimea on 27 February 2014" - no-one is saying that the War in Donbas is not a correctly-named article.
"I decline the temptation to identify the date of February 24, 2022, as its beginning... - This is exactly the kind of "saying it isn't whilst acknowledging that it is" that I referred to. If it were clear that the start date was 27 February 2014, they wouldn't need to say any of this.
Similarly Bacon is ambiguous about whether they consider the Donbas War to be the same war as the present war.
Arel and Driscoll does not support the point you are trying to make.
"Russia-Ukraine war" isn't inaccurate, nor is it ambiguous: it's very clear. Just like Polish-Soviet war.
Finally I have to note that, unlike the Wikipedia Library search results and WP:RSNP results cited above, your results are not randomly selected nor a representative sample. FOARP (talk) 12:08, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Russia's war against Ukraine began with the annexation of Crimea on 27 February 2014" - no-one is saying that the War in Donbas is not a correctly-named article
So you're reading "Crimea" and refer do Donbas.
"I decline the temptation to identify the date of February 24, 2022, as its beginning... - This is exactly the kind of "saying it isn't whilst acknowledging that it is" that I referred to. If it were clear that the start date was 27 February 2014, they wouldn't need to say any of this
Here it is: the war began eight years earlier, on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament.
Similarly Bacon is ambiguous about whether they consider the Donbas War to be the same war as the present war.
Here it is, plain and clear: The seizure of Crimea sparked the war with Ukraine. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 12:13, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A Google search for Russia-Ukraine war and "2014" has hundred of thousands of results with numerous sources saying that the war started in 2014. – Asarlaí (talk) 12:19, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Finding Google Hits that mention Russia-Ukraine war and "2014" demonstrates nothing. Plenty of articles will mention 2014 without considering it to be the start of the present war. FOARP (talk) 12:25, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But if you look at the results, most of those articles *do* consider 2014 to be the start of the war. – Asarlaí (talk) 13:04, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's like every academic work dedicated to the issue is saying so.
Full article: How to End a War: Some Historical Lessons for Ukraine The war began with a minimal-force invasion of Crimea, a Ukrainian region that Russia annexed in March 2014, followed by lethal proxy operations in parts of the Donbas, another Ukrainian region. It became a geographically confined war, with more than 14,000 fatalities, including hundreds of Russian soldiers.Footnote2 On 24 February 2022, Russia undertook a full-scale attempt to seize the capital of Ukraine and to invade and occupy the country as a whole. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 12:21, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have to note that you don't have any response to the point about representative samples. Again, the overwhelming majority of academic journal articles randomly sampled, and the overwhelming majority of WP:RSNP sources with Ukraine coverage, state that the war started on 22 February 2022. Your response seems to be to ignore even academic sources, focusing on the relatively small number of authors who follow your preferred POV.
But OK, let's take the first five hits from the Journal Survival (i.e., the one from which your quote comes) for "Russia-Ukraine war". I get:
That is, even just looking at a sample of articles published in the very journal you've just cited, shows the authors there overwhelmingly treating this as a war that began in 2022, not a continuous war since 2014. We shouldn't be representing an WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE POV as if it were the academic consensus like this. FOARP (talk) 12:55, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a fringe view, it's the mainstream view. Myself and other editors have linked to numerous sources saying the war began in 2014. I think you've misinterpreted some of your sources. – Asarlaí (talk) 13:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but you personally haven't actually linked to any specific sources in this discussion. You've only linked to a Google search. But OK, let's look at the first five hits for that search:
Even using the result from this Google search the majority of usable sources state that the present Russia-Ukraine war began in 2022. FOARP (talk) 15:10, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're cherrypicking results (only the first five out of thousands, two of which are Wikipedia as one would expect) and also cherrypicking wording from within those sources (for example the Britannica article begins "Russia-Ukraine War, war between Russia and Ukraine that began in February 2014", and the Commons report continues "Prior to the invasion, there had already been eight years of conflict"). – Asarlaí (talk) 15:24, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There aren't thousands of hits from this Google search (there's about ~250 - you have to page through to the last page of results to know how many hits a Google search has, since the number it shows on the first page is just an estimate which could be wildly wrong), and using the first five hits is the exact opposite of "cherry picking". And let me point out again that these are your results, so if they state that the war began in 2022 (which is what that Britannica and House of Commons articles do) that's the exact opposite of what you're using them to say. FOARP (talk) 15:36, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We also have lots of academic sources in the first line of Russo-Ukrainian War#History, many of which were originally added by myself. The link to the Google search was simply to show there are many more sources of various kinds stating that the war began in 2014. – Asarlaí (talk) 15:41, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the overwhelming majority of academic journal articles randomly sampled, and the overwhelming majority of WP:RSNP sources with Ukraine coverage, state that the war started on 22 February 2022.
Let's check these.
"The Cyber Dimension of the Russia–Ukraine War", Marcus Willett - "The 2022 Russia–Ukraine war"
The second wartime use occurred in early 2014, when Russia employed cyber operations against Ukraine prior to and during its occupation of Crimea. Full article: The Cyber Dimension of the Russia–Ukraine War
""Endings and Surprises of the Russia–Ukraine War", Chester A Crocker - describes the pre-war flare-ups as "the Donbas situation"
No, it does not describes "the Donbas situation", nor 2014 war. Just a passing mention.
"Europe’s Fragile Unity", Arlo Poletti
Again, it is dedicated to 2022 war. You cannot use it to claim anything about 2014 war. Please be more selective with your sources. Sources which are dedicated to 2014 war should be preferred when discussing 2014 war. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 13:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your "checking" has failed to identify where I'm wrong on this.
Willett stating that 2014 was "wartime" does not contradict the clear statement from Willett that the present war started in 2022 - it literally says "The 2022 Russia–Ukraine war" as a section title! Crocker literally states that: "A second possible future involves a series of interim, loosely organised ceasefires where the fighting winds down along the lines of contact but flares up again periodically according to the familiar rhythm of the Donbas situation between 2014 and February 2022." - Crocker clearly doesn't consider the situation in Donbas to have been continuous war between 2014 and 2022 but your entire argument is that academics think this.
Poletti's article being dedicated entirely to the present conflict only reinforces my point - when people say "Russia-Ukraine war" they mean the war that's going on now and began in 2022 and they don't even need to qualify it.
And if you look at the next 5 hits on the same journal, it's exactly the same story:
You're trying to present something as an academic consensus when the reality is completely the opposite. FOARP (talk) 14:45, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're trying to present something as an academic consensus when the reality is completely the opposite.
As it has been shown, the sources you provided in a message preceding this are either contradict your thesis, or are not dedicated to the 2014 war. You are back again with sources which do not discuss the events which started in 2014, or barely mention these. Before this, you made a fringe claim about established political scientists and historians and academic monographies being "fringe". There is little point in continuing with this. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:11, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to tell you this, but you haven't shown anything of the kind. And I have to point out that none of the people arguing that there is a consensus for the view that the war began in 2014 have been able to present anything more than the same half-dozen or so sources, whilst on the other hand there is the entire weight of the world's news media who reported yesterday as the 3rd anniversary of the war, and the overwhelming weight of academic opinion as well, as shown by the Wikipedia Library journal search. FOARP (talk) 15:40, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the news media I've seen report it as the 3rd anniversary of the "invasion", "full-scale invasion" or "full-scale war":
Many of them use simply "war" in the headline, because headlines need to be concise, but go on to call it the anniversary of the invasion in the main part of their articles.
– Asarlaí (talk) 15:52, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Many of them use simply "war" in the headline, because headlines need to be concise" - you get that Wikipedia has the exact same requirement, right? See WP:CONCISE.
And even in those links, the Guardian article is in a section headed "Russia-Ukraine war" (one that goes back to 2022), the CNN article calls it "the third anniversary of Moscow’s full-blown war.", WaPo literally say "third anniversary of the war" right there in the headline, NYT calls yesterday a "war anniversary" right there in the headline, ABC News says "3rd anniversary of Russia's war" right there in the headline - do I need to go on? FOARP (talk) 16:06, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We should also be WP:PRECISE. As I said, they go on to call it the anniversary of the invasion. – Asarlaí (talk) 16:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is not necessarily a contradiction. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 16:17, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All of the sources you have provided explicitly endorse the concept that 24 February 2022 was the beginning of a war. There is absolutely nothing to be found in any of them about 2014.
This proves that:
1. The events of 2022–2025 are the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the term Russia–Ukraine war.
2. The WP:COMMONNAME of the events of 2022-2025 is Russia–Ukraine war.
SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 16:13, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it was the beginning of a new phase of a war that began in 2014. Breaking news articles about events happening right now are unlikely to talk about events from 11 years ago. – Asarlaí (talk) 16:23, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Yes it was the beginning of a new phase of a war that began in 2014" - this "new phase" language is not something used by any expert anywhere: it's something people here on WP invented.
"Breaking news articles about events happening right now are unlikely to talk about events from 11 years ago" - I can find dozens of articles covering the 11th anniversary of 9/11 (e.g., 1, 2, 3), the Iraq war (1, 2, 3). News media is covering the 2022 anniversary because it is significant, but the 2014 anniversary isn't considered so significant, because it isn't generally considered the start of the present war. FOARP (talk) 16:35, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In a couple days, we will have the opportunity to compare directly. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 16:40, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
...and the results are in. Only 6 hits on Google News for a search for articles published in the past week mentioning "11th anniversary" + "Ukraine". For comparison a GNews search for "3rd anniversary" and "Ukraine" in the same period found 132 hits (note that I paged through to the last page of the results to confirm this count rather than relying on the estimate produced by the Google algorithm).
Even looking at these 6 hits mentioning an 11th anniversary, they were covering the 11th anniversary of "Crimean Resistance Day" on 26 February (e.g. here). FOARP (talk) 13:26, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For comparison a GNews search for "3rd anniversary" and "Ukraine" in the same period found 132 hits
Of those, 5 first are talking about "invasion", a few news aggregators like MSN are not counted, one labels it "conflict", and one "war". "3rd anniversary" "Ukraine" - page 1 . ManyAreasExpert (talk) 13:35, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They mention the invasion - unsurprisingly, because the invasion was the start of the war. They also all label it a "war" as far as I can see (I'm not going to watch the videos to see what they called it).
The point that the war that began on 24 February 2022 is far more prominent than the one that began on 26-27 February 2014, and that few sources consider this war to be in its 11th year, stands. FOARP (talk) 13:55, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The point that the war that began on 24 February 2022 is far more prominent than the one that began on 26-27 February 2014
Everybody agrees on that
They mention the invasion
I should correct myself above - Of those, 5 first are talking about "invasion" - 5 first label it invasion. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:13, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I could not find the word "phase" anywhere in those articles – what they say is that 24 February 2022 was the beginning of a war. The fact that this interpretation is dominant in media should not be ignored or misrepresented. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 16:38, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
First, what we often call “the Ukraine War” didn’t start in February 2022, even if
that is when its most intense, calamitous, and globally resonant phase began. Just
as Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 was the prologue to its all- out invasion
of China in 1937, the war between Ukraine and Rus sia began in 2014 with Vladi
mir Putin’s taking of Crimea and his intervention— first through proxies and then
with regular forces—in the Donbas. War in Ukraine - Google Books ManyAreasExpert (talk) 17:35, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You get that this is as source that is explicitly arguing against a consensus, right? The second Sino-Japanese war began in 1937. A "prologue" is something that comes before the start. FOARP (talk) 11:26, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, we aren't claiming a "consensus" contrary to what the presented sources' consensus is. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:31, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly what this source is doing. The consensus (as reflected on our Second Sino-Japanese War page) is that the Sino-Japanese war began in 1937, not 1931. By making this comparison, the source is essentially arguing against the academic consensus on the issue and adopting the WP:FRINGE view. FOARP (talk) 12:40, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is an utter supermajority of news sources that use "Russia-Ukraine war" (or variants like "war in Ukraine", "Ukraine war", etc.) – [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] in just the first page of Google News results. That same page has only one source using "invasion" – [9]. If that isn't a result to indicate a preference for "Russia Ukraine war" as the title for Russian invasion of Ukraine, I don't know what is. We are talking 8:1 here – there is no doubt of "war" rather than "invasion" for this. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 17:26, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do sources say the war stated in 2014? Yes. Was there an invasion 2022? Yes. Do we have to pick one title over another according to the number of WP:NEWSORG sources? No, because WP:NOTNEWS. Cheers. DN (talk) 20:19, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nowhere do any of those reliable sources mention anything about 2014. It is clear to almost anyone that Wikipedia's coverage of a continuous war since 2014 is an artificial construct. Sources are virtually unanimous that there was a war from 2014–15 in the Donbas, which then turned into a frozen conflict after Minsk. Thus, not a full-scale Russo-Ukrainian War, but a Russo-Ukrainian conflict (or a Russia-Ukraine conflict). Sources ([10] [11] [12]). Whenever a source from 2022 onward mentions something ongoing from 2014, it universally uses "conflict", not "war". Sources are clear: the conflict started in 2014. There may have been a war 2014–15. The war started in 2022. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 12:26, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, and with all due respect, the argument that we shouldn't call it an invasion due to any amount of News style coverage ignores WP:NOTNEWS. Sources that refer to the war after 2022 and the preexisting circumstances from 2014 do not contradict sources that refer to it as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The article describes the invasion, not the conflict or the war, the invasion. I have said my piece here so I shall exit this discussion before I start bludgeoning others like a broken record. Cheers, and best of luck. DN (talk) 20:35, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What's OK for the source is not OK for wiki editors. We just stick to what it says without claiming established academics "fringe", or "fringe" we would be. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 12:54, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do sources say a war started in 2014? Yes. Do sources say a war started in 2022? Yes. Placeholderer (talk) 23:00, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion continued

[edit]
  • Strong Oppose: "Russian invasion of Ukraine" is the most straightforward and common way of referring to the event. When I hear "Russo-Ukrainian War", I associate that more with the entire war beginning in 2014. It would definitely be technically accurate to say "Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present)", but it seems to very arbitrary to have that cut off point when you are reading that title. The reason why it is not arbitrary, is because that is when Russia began its full scale invasion, so you might as well just call it that instead, and have it be "Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present)". Not having the year is the only downside of the current title, so I would be in favor of adding "(2022–present)" to the title we have right now. Anonymous Libertarian (talk) 15:25, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you able to demonstrate that invasion is a more common way of referring to the events of 2022–25 than war? I believe you are the first person making this argument. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 15:29, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not saying that "invasion" is a more common way of referring to the events than "war". What I usually see is either "Russian invasion of Ukraine" or "the War in Ukraine", so calling it a "war" is definitely equally as accurate as calling it an "invasion". However, it wouldn't be right to call it the "Russo-Ukrainian War" in my opinion, because that's a much broader term that applies to the entire war starting in 2014. Think about why you are referring specifically to the events of 2022-2025 and not 2014-2025. The war did not begin in 2022; it began in 2014. What did begin in 2022 is the full scale Russian invasion, so it is that, and not the Russo-Ukrainian War, that defines the scope of the article. And because it is the invasion that defines the scope of the article, it makes logical sense to make that the title. Anonymous Libertarian (talk) 15:44, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The user Asarlaí has demonstrated above that many news outlets consider 24 February 2025 to be the "third anniversary of the war". This points to a common understanding that when we refer to the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war, we mean the events of 2022–2025.
    I am aware that there is a much broader definition of Russia–Ukraine war, but we are not required to automatically accept it just because it is more inclusive, especially when that view is now being rejected by sources. In fact, the concept of a 3-year war is so much more common in sources than the concept of an 11-year war, that the latter has even been referred to in this discussion as a "fringe" viewpoint. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 16:29, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-84e4c62519fc15b34e17f661cf3dd20e
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-xi-affirms-no-limits-partnership-putin-call-ukraine-rcna193574
    I'll use these two articles as an example. Yes, they do both consider 24 February 2025 to be the "third anniversary of the war", but the third anniversary of what war?
    AP News begins its article with the sentence, "Ukraine on Monday marked the bleakest anniversary yet of its war against the Russia invasion", which implies that they are naming the war as the "war against the Russian invasion". NBC news, on the other hand, simply refers to it as the "the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine". It is an anniversary of the war, but more specifically, it is an anniversary of the full scale invasion.
    The terms "war" and "invasion" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. My argument is that it makes more logical sense to say "Russian invasion of Ukraine" to refer to the events of 2022-2025 rather than "Russo-Ukrainian War", because it is the invasion that logically demarcates the time period. Anonymous Libertarian (talk) 17:10, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    To re-cap, you've found two sources that explicitly describe the present conflict as a war that began in 2022. FOARP (talk) 22:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    They may be advocating for including the year. It's best to ask what they mean or put it in the form of a question in order to avoid accidental misrepresentation of someone else's argument. Cheers. DN (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Malformed/out of process/oppose The nom has proposed a move of Russian invasion of Ukraine while acknowledging and foreshadowing a move of Russo-Ukraine War. The two articles (and their titles) are intricately related. This is evident from the nomination statement and from the discussion that has ensued, with many editors commenting on both titles. The nomination statement even acknowledges that this proposed move may well be temporary because of the foreshadowed move. Addressing the moves piecemeal is inherently disruptive process. Even the nom now acknowledges: I was trying to avoid discussion of the 2014 article in this RM but I suppose they are inseparable. The RM is therefore contrary to WP:EXPLICIT. The evidence is overwhelming that the ultimate of article titles for these two articles cannot be discussed in isolation from each other. There are also comments that are referring to the scope of these two articles as part of the overall question. An RM is not the venue for a discussion of article scope. Arguably, it is more important to address the scope of an article before determining the title, since the scope may/will impact on what is an appropriate title. As scope issues affect both articles, there would need to be a centralised discussion, and probably an RfC, given the contentious nature of the subject. Consequently, this RM is Malformed and out of process.
Per my comments in the previous discussion, the [only] objective way to resolve the titling of the two articles is to look at good quality contemporary sources that address both events to see if there is a consensus for naming [both events] when treated together. WP:RSCONTEXT does matter, in respect to whether both events are being considered together and (as Mr rnddude points out) whether the these events are the primary context - writing about these two events or something else affected by these two events. I also observed: NEWSORG sources live in the present for the next story. I don't think they are a good basis for renaming an article such as this. I doubt they gave much consideration (if any) to how we name the post 2022 events and the 2014 to 2022 events. WP:RS qualifies the use of NEWSORG sources. How these two subject are being referred to now in high quality sources is more likely to reflect how they will be referred to in ten years (WP:TENYEARTEST), since future writers will increasingly draw on high quality sources as time progresses.
Of the "evidence" presented herein, much of its collection has not been done in an objective manner. It seeks to show the prevalence of war as a closed question rather than the open and more objective question of what is it called? Of the terms under discussion, an invasion is war and both an invasion and a war are an [armed] conflict. We need to consider whether a term is being used as a title rather than being used more generally (eg since the war started).
I have conducted searches of google scholar for: "Russia Ukraine war" since 2014 (15,500 hits), from 2014-2021 (1,030 hits), from 2015-2021 (970 hits), since 2022 (15,600 hits) and since 2024 (13,200 hits); "Russia Ukraine conflict" since 2014 (15,000 hits), from 2014-2021 (1,580 hits]), from 2015-2021 (1,480 hits), since 2022 (14,400 hits), since 2024 (871 hits); and, "Russian invasion of Ukraine" since 2014 (16,700 hits), from 2014-2021 (1,140 hits), since 2022 (16,600 hits), from 2015-2021 (1,070 hits) and since 2024 (13,700 hits). I appreciate that this is a crude analysis. Latter sources may refer to earlier events; however, earlier sources cannot be referring to later events. There is no filtering for RSCONTEXT. I am aware that there may be issues with the actual number of hits and that it would be better to count the number of pages of results. However, the results are indicative. I am not seeing a result to indicate a preference for "Russia Ukraine war" as the title for Russian invasion of Ukraine - particularly in the absence of other objective evidence.
While their dictionary definitions of invasion, war and conflict may not be identical, it is not surprising to see that they are/would be used synonymously. The semantics of their meanings and interpretation of how those meanings apply to these events is WP:OR and has no significant place in determining the question of article titles. The determination of an article title is based on the WP:CRITERIA and, while WP:COMMONNAME undoubtedly has significant weight, the best title is determined by considering and balancing (weighing) all five criteria, such as WP:NATURAL, which the proposal is not. Even if we could reasonably consider the title of this article in isolation, I am not seeing objective evidence and good P&G based reasons to move from the present title and oppose the move. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:22, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the other page needs to be notified if a move is being proposed that affects it, however, it has been notified as of yesterday. WP:EXPLICIT is not contravened since the proposed move includes a proposed move for Russo-Ukrainian war.
I also agree that in reality we are discussing the scope of this page, and indeed the accuracy of portraying all of the events of 2022-2025 as a "Russian invasion of Ukraine" that is a continuation of a war beginning in 2014. However, an RM discussion is an appropriate forum for such a discussion.
Regarding sourcing, demanding that the sources discuss both conflicts in detail sets up an artificial limitation. What matters is what this conflict is called, and if another, lesser conflict is called the same thing then WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is clear about how to handle it.
Regarding the Google searches, we cannot rely on the number given by the algorithm on the first page since this is often wrong by 1-2 orders of magnitude (see WP:HITS on this). Since Google now limits the ability to read beyond the 99th page of results, we can no longer go to the last page to see what the actual count was. We also have to look at what the articles say to see if they do actually support what they are being used for: they do not appear to do so. For example the first 5 hits for documents published since 2024 mentioning the term "Russian invasion of Ukraine" is as follows:
FOARP (talk) 11:04, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In response:
  • The pages to affected by an RM must be listed per the instructions at WP:RMPM. The bot then makes appropriate notifications at the affected pages in the prescribed form and at various alert pages. This was not done for Russo-Ukraine War. A belated notice to that talk page is insufficient remedy. WP:EXPLICIT does apply and exclude Russo-Ukraine War as being part of this RM.
  • RMs are used for page moves. Your assertion that it is an appropriate venue for discussing significant structural changes to the chronological scope of articles does not appear consistent with the purpose and the spirit and intent of WP:RM. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:23, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Asserting that both articles will potentially occupy the same name space and that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC comes into play only affirms that the two article must be discussed WP:EXPLICITLY. It does matter what both articles are called. The best titles for each (per WP:CRITERIA when considered together) may not lead to a conflict of names such the PRIMARYTOPIC becomes a consideration. Sources that have discussed both events have needed to distinguish the two events. They will be an inherently good guide as to how we should do the same. There is nothing artificial about adopting such a course.
  • In presenting the Google scholar results, I have acknowledged some limitations but conclude that it is nonetheless sufficiently indicative. In respect to your first five hits, I have already stated: We need to consider whether a term is being used as a title rather than being used more generally (eg since the war started). We are seeing Russian invasion of Ukraine being used as a title in four of those five sources.
Cinderella157 (talk) 03:23, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Cinderella157, sticking to the procedural issues (the others have been talked to death):
  1. WP:EXPLICIT only requires that moves be concretely proposed. That was done. Usage of specific templates/bots is always optional, what matters in their content. However, if you think something still needs to be done then it can be done now - what exactly do you think still needs to be done?
  2. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Particularly, you are proposing a Catch22 where it would be impossible to ever effect a change simultaneously in both the title and scope of an article, since scope cannot be changed in title discussions, and titles cannot be changed in scope discussions. FOARP (talk) 11:18, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What matters is what this conflict is called ... No, what we call both articles clearly matters. A properly formed proposal should WP:EXPLICITLY identify which articles are affected, propose names for each article and present a case for moving to the proposed name. Foreshadowing what might be done in a certain scenario does not make this correctly proposed. It only proposes a remedy to a potential problem. There is no case presented for why this is the best option in consideration of WP:CRITERIA for both articles. The nomination is well intended but ill-considered. Given the evident controversial nature of the issues, there should have been a centralised discussion to consider and workshop a proposal involving both articles.
No catch-22 here. The scope of article can be considered independent of their names. A change of scope may well not need a change of name. A matter of content is far more important than the name. Once there is consensus regarding scope, then a change of name can be addressed - if necessary. As I said before, trying to do it the other way around is putting the horse before the cart.
WP:NOTBURO tells us: [the principles of] written policies and guidelines should be taken seriously. The articles affected by an RM need to be EXPLICITLY stated so that the move of each affected article can be explicitly discussed and not piecemeal. That is the principle of EXPLICIT. I do not see anything to be done that would be an adequate remedy. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:30, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I honestly can't follow your point about Russo-Ukrainian war. The page was notified of this discussion, a page-move for that page was proposed by the OP, reasoned !votes have been made for and against that page move. There's no reason to insist that that page can't be moved by a discussion here. You seem to be insisting on an entirely formalistic approach where a specific template must be used.
I also have to note that previous RMs for this page - RMs you !voted in - did imply changes to the scope of the article. However, this wasn't a problem for you at that point. For example the discussion that moved the article from 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine to Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present), which extended the time period covered by the article. Assuming good faith, I can only assume that these implicit scope-changes simply weren't noticed at the time.
Anyway, we're not actually proposing a change in the existing scope of this article, since the scope is already determined by the content of the article, which has long since extended far beyond the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. FOARP (talk) 09:16, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A properly formed proposal should WP:EXPLICITLY identify which articles are affected, propose names for each article and present a case for moving to the proposed name. The articles affected by an RM need to be EXPLICITLY stated so that the move of each affected article can be explicitly discussed and not piecemeal. Identifying a fallback position in the nomination statement does no fulfil this. I do not believe that the principle of EXPLICIT have been met, even with the subsequent notifications. Ultimately, this becomes a matter for the closer.
Where I refer to scope, I refer to significant structural changes to the chronological scope [content] of articles. Such proposals have been made here for this article and at least one suggestion for Russo-Ukraine War. You would appear to be using scope in a different context to how I have been using scope. The previous RM you refer to of March 2023 did not propose a change of article scope (ie content) in the way I use this term. Consequently, your observations are misplaced. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:38, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Moving the article from 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine to Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present) quite literally changed the "chronological scope" of the article by extending it out of 2022, so I simply don't follow you here. RM discussion very often deal with the scope of the article at the same time since this is a key part of determining the title - a simple glance at the discussions current open at WP:RM#C shows a number of them openly proposing to change the scope of the article. Moreover, there have been a number of discussions on the scope of this article covering the Kursk incursion and other aspects of the conflict that are not strictly within the scope of the Russian invasion of Ukraine - the most recent of these being the inclusion of North Korea in the infobox as a belligerent. The discussion you are asking for has already happened.
As for explicit, the fact that the moves proposed here are WP:EXPLICITly proposed is easily demonstrated by the multiple !votes on them. FOARP (talk) 12:10, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Moving the article from 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine to Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present) did not change the scope of the article as it was written at the time. The RM simply acknowledged that chronologically the article as written no longer matched the chronological description of the title. On the other hand, there are proposals herein that would substantially affect the chronological coverage of the two articles and therefore excluding (or adding) content - this is how I have been referring to scope. While an article title is indicative of the scope of the article, it is the lead that actually defines this. Herein lies the significant difference between how I have referred to scope and what I perceive to be how you are referring to scope. To the other points you raise in respect to semantic arguments of definition, I addressed those in my initial comment: The semantics of their meanings and interpretation of how those meanings apply to these events is WP:OR and has no significant place in determining the question of article titles. The decision is largely determined by source based evidence. I identified the nature of appropriate evidence and why.
As for explicit, the fact that the moves proposed here are WP:EXPLICITly proposed is easily demonstrated by the multiple !votes on them. It is easily refuted by removal of the notification you placed at Russo-Ukraine War here with the edit summary: this is about another article (the one specifically about the 2022 invasion), not this one. An EXPLCITly made RM should state which articles are to be move to what names and make a P&G based argument as to why these are the best titles to move those articles to. The nomination statement only addresses Russo-Ukraine War as a contingency. It makes not argument as to why this is the best choice per CRITERIA, only that it would resolve a potential title conflict for a name of this article that was not actually proposed in the nomination. Where editors have commented on a move of Russo-Ukraine War, the comments have largely been offered as "opinions" rather than a substantive P&G framed argument based on CRITERIA and offering evidence. As I said before, whether EXPLICIT has been met: Ultimately, this becomes a matter for the closer. However, I don't think it has been. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:44, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"The RM simply acknowledged that chronologically the article as written no longer matched the chronological description of the title" - and here it has already been decided that this article covers topics that are not, strictly speaking, Russia invading Ukraine.
"While an article title is indicative of the scope of the article, it is the lead that actually defines this" - and the lead section of the present article discusses topics that are not, strictly speaking, Russia invading Ukraine, including the Kursk incursion.
A mistaken, already-reverted removal of a notice that literally says not to remove it until this discussion closes is not demonstrative of anything. FOARP (talk) 14:08, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, moving the article didn't change its scope. The established 'chronological scope' of this article from day dot has been from onset (24 February 2022) to on-going. Actions in the conflict from incoming days, months, and years fall within that scope by default until the event terminates. The move followed the established scope. There was discussion in the RM on whether the event (an invasion) had already terminated. The consensus view was that it had not. If the reverse was true, there would need to be a discussion each day to determine whether the scope should be extended to include the events of that day, thereby necessitating an obscene waste of editors' time. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:05, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding sourcing, demanding that the sources discuss both conflicts in detail sets up an artificial limitation
If the source does not discuss the subject in question, we cannot make anything on the subject out of the source, including the naming of the subject.
What matters is what this conflict is called
We cannot decide on the naming of 2014 war with such an approach. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:29, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm really not sure why you keep passing over the fact that the issue of the 2014-15 war is dealt with by WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, meaning we absolutely don't have to look at sources discussing them together. Instead, we simply need to determine which is the primary topic for "Russia-Ukraine war" - and beyond a shadow of a doubt it is the much larger, much more written about, and much more significant 2022 war, not the 2014 war. FOARP (talk) 12:36, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, We cannot decide on the naming of 2014 war with such an approach. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 12:47, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not seeing a result to indicate a preference for "Russia Ukraine war" as the title for Russian invasion of Ukraine – just look at the utter supermajority of news sources that use "Russia-Ukraine war" (or variants like "war in Ukraine", "Ukraine war", etc.) – [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] in just the first page of Google News results. That same page has only one source using "invasion" – [21]. If that isn't a result to indicate a preference for "Russia Ukraine war" as the title for Russian invasion of Ukraine, I don't know what is. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 12:02, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the naming of the Russo-Ukrainian War and this page need to resolved simultaneously as we can (and should) not have 2 articles with the same name. In my view there is much to say for the opinion that the war started in 2014 (as the other article uses) which would warrant leaving that article name unchanged. However I do agree that the stage of the original invasion of Ukraine (2022) has ended by now and there is now active war / open war on Ukrainian soil (or something similar). So I am open for a change but that needs to be done together with the other change. Arnoutf (talk) 12:24, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present) Oppose Russo-Ukrainian War. Also a reminder of wp:bludgeon, No one should have to wade through pages of posts just to reach the bottom. Slatersteven (talk) 14:53, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. An unambiguous clear title of what actually happens: a hot phase of the Russia-Ukraine war. --Altenmann >talk 21:30, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the arguments given by Cinderella157, including WP:RSCONTEXT + WP:TENYEARTEST. Boud (talk) 00:37, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per arguments advanced by Cinderella157 Yadsalohcin (talk) 23:24, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Russia-Ukraine War (2022-present) and Russia-Ukraine Conflict (2014-present). I prefer dates in both because users need to know what page they have landed on, and because the encyclopedia would remain neutral about when the conflict/war started. I think issues of blame (ie Russia) can be dealt with in the lead first sentences. I think COMMONNAME arguments in favour of briefer titles can often favour aesthetics over useability, and useability should come first. Redirects can handle briefer names.OsFish (talk) 09:50, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for flagging this up discussion, FOARP: otherwise I am sure I would have missed it. I would be supportive of a change of name for the article to Russia-Ukraine War (2022–present). I could live with Russo-Ukrainian in place of Russia-Ukraine. Rename Russo-Ukrainian War to Russo-Ukrainian conflict from 2014 and open the article on Russia-Ukraine War (2022–present) with its current text, On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, which had started in 2014, and hope that future editors leave this or reasonably comparable wording in place. BobKilcoyne (talk) 11:31, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose - The United Nations refers to the war as "Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine". The current name is the accepted standard by the international community. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/02/1160456 Stidmatt (talk) 12:54, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The international community isn't necessarily consistent with academic consensus Placeholderer (talk) 13:06, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This source varies between referring to the invasion as an ongoing three-year event and an one-time event that took place on 24 February 2022. More importantly, this page alone is hardly sufficient to support your assertion regarding the existence of some sort of standard used by international community. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 13:24, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, we don't automatically use WP:OFFICIALNAMEs on WP, we typically prefer the common-name. Even the UN webpage that's linked to here is entitled "Ukraine war", indicating that this is more than just an invasion: it's a war. EDIT: interestingly, in speeches Zelensky repeatedly refers to the conflict as a "war" that began in 2022: see this speech on the first anniversary of the war ("A year ago, on this day [...] Russia started a full-scale war against us."). It simply isn't true that calling this a war that started in 2022 is against the Ukrainian POV. FOARP (talk) 14:00, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose – There are two issues here. First of all, I strongly oppose any move to "Russia–Ukraine War". The combining form usage is the standard in reliable academic sources and has been since about 2015. I do not understand why editors are insisting on moving any of these articles to the headlinese "Russia-Ukraine War", which is non-standard English, purely based on news sources. Reliable academic sources should be the focus, and these consistently use "Russo-Ukrainian War" as demonstrated by ManyAreasExpert above and in previous RMs. This is also WP:CONSISTENT with our similar articles, such as "Russo-Georgian War". Second of all, I strongly oppose the proposed reorganisation of these articles per very cogent arguments made by Cinderella157, Manyareasexpert and Asarlaí. This is a conflict that began in 2014, and academic sources have been dealing with it as such since that time. The full-scale invasion, which this article deals with, is just the latest, and perhaps most well-known phase. Attempts to situate this phase as the entire war, and negate the full breadth of the conflict as found in the literature are laden with WP:RECENTISM. In the battle between the popular understanding found in mass media articles and the academic historiography of this conflict that has existed since 2014, Wikipedia must choose the academic. RGloucester — ☎ 19:10, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Since Russia has invaded and annexed Ukrainian territories since the "the Little Green Men in Crimea" in Februaray 2014 and since Ukraine invaded Russian territories since August 2024, maybe it would be a more proper title.--MaGioZal (talk) 19:13, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Kursk offensive doesn't need to be treated in this article, if that is your concern. Any Kursk-related content could be dealt with in Russo-Ukrainian War, the broader summary article, with a link retained here. This is not a justification for renaming the article. These articles are in flux, as these are ongoing events. A reorganisation will have to wait until the war is over, as per TylerBurden below. There is WP:NODEADLINE, because we are WP:NOTNEWS. RGloucester — ☎ 14:19, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Kursk offensive is very, very clearly part of the conflict covered in this article. It seriously affected many other parts of the frontline, and more importantly, has been solely covered in sources, both news and scholarly, as part of a war that began in 2022. Any attempt to keep Kursk out of this article is even more artificial than pretending that a war that lasted from 2014–2015 is still ongoing. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 15:18, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support anything similar to the RM proposal, recognizing that the entire war is different to the 2022 invasion, and strongly oppose anything using the term "invasion" for a period lasting beyond the 2022 invasion, for reasons of factual accuracy and RS usage. My preferred option would be to not use the RM process but rather move all content about the period beyond the invasion from this article into the Russo-Ukrainian War article, limiting the scope of this article to spring 2022, (and I do support the "Russia-Ukraine war" format for reasons mentioned above), but I'd be satisfied with any formatting which doesn't try to characterize an entire multi-year war as the initial invasion. The War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) article is not titled "United States invasion of Afghanistan"! Chessrat (talk, contributions) 00:44, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose Clearly this was and remains an invasion of Ukraine by Russia, as the current title reflects. The Kursk incursion is a sideshow, and should be covered here as a Ukrainian response rtto being invaded without needing to adjust the current title, which is descriptive and accurate. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:41, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Peacemaker67: At the risk of overusing the example, I'll bring up the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The entire duration of Barbarossa up until the Soviet counteroffensive on 5 December, was marked by the quick overrunning of a quickly moving frontline. You don't have to be a milhistorian to deduce the similarity of Barbarossa to the fast Russian advances in the first month or so of the war. The early April frontline, when the invasion is considered to have ended by military historians, is strikingly similar to the current frontline: in fact, Ukrainian counteroffensives have more than canceled out further Russian advances since. Three years from now, Russia still controls less territory than it did after it was forced out of the northern front. Would you call that an invasion, or a war? 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 13:08, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I've posted below about what the knock-on effects of re-naming would be. In short, it would mean deciding when the invasion ended, deciding whether to say "invasion" or "war" within this and many other articles, possibly splitting up this article, re-naming many other articles and templates, deciding how to deal with disagreements over which wording to use, etc. I think it would be better waiting until the fighting has stopped and the dust has settled. – Asarlaí (talk) 15:48, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, in accordance with Cinderella157's arguments. The Russo-Ukrainian War began in 2014, with the invasion of Crimea and later Russian incursions into Donbas.[1][2] The latter invasion poses a major escalation of this war, and is directly related to it, one can determine continuity. While the fighting was of low-intensity for years, there was consistent fighting. As a prelude to the 2022 invasion, Russia heavily increased shelling in Donbas[3] - as a continuity, Putin and Russian leadership want to enforce[4][5][6][7][8] the earlier formulated goal[9][10] of a "Novorossiya" in Southern and Eastern Ukraine, also recognising the two Russian-controlled states DPR and LPR that were established in the years earlier, wanting to occupy all of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. Russia directly built on its earlier justifications, procedures, warfare in a fluid transition.[11][12] I support retaining War in Donbas and Russian invasion of Ukraine as the two respective phases of the war, also to not downplay the War in Donbas as a "conflict". It would be false to portray the low intensity fighting as a significant "break" in the war, this is not the case. It quite clearly is related and continuous. Zerbrxsler (talk) 09:56, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, though a split would be best. The overall war should have its own article; IMO there should be an article about th invasion itself, called Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it only ought to deal with the very first weeks, when Russia was actually, you know, invading. They haven't been invading for years, but the war is still ongoing. Since this article talks about the entire war, I support. Red Slash 18:07, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Red Slash, one of the issues raised in this discussion is that we already have an article on the overall war: Russo-Ukrainian War. – Asarlaí (talk) 14:44, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
....which is written from the POV that this war began in 2014, not in 2022, which is the entire problem we are trying to address here. FOARP (talk) 15:02, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not POV. Nobody except RU propaganda is opposing that 2014 Russian invasion in Crimea started the war. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:20, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea started a war and a conflict. The war ended in 2015 with Minsk, the conflict had a cold phase from 2015–22, when it intensified into a still-ongoing war. That is what we are trying to reflect in the article. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 15:45, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The war ended in 2015 with Minsk - sources disagree. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 16:00, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which sources? I have seen none that claim that a war starting in 2014 is still ongoing, save for Russian propaganda. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 16:03, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Have a look at Russo-Ukrainian War section Russian annexation of Crimea (2014) for sources saying that current war started in 2014. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 16:11, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. Many more sources state that the current war started in 2022. Since you seem to completely discount news sources, here are some scholarly ones: [22] [23] [24], [25] which unambiguously refers to a conflict starting in 2014, and [26] are just a few. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 16:19, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They are not in contradiction. Sources talk about the ongoing war which started in 2014, and there is a full-scale war, part of 2014 war, which started in 2022. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 16:33, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
welp that's embarrassing. Red Slash 19:49, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as I find that news RS almost universally use various terms such as “the war in Ukraine”, “Russia’s war in Ukraine”, “the Ukraine war”, and variations thereon. They don’t call it an invasion because the invasion failed in the north and stalled in the south by mid-April ‘22. Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 00:17, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Russia-Ukraine War (2022-present) for this article and Russia-Ukraine conflict for overall hostilities. -Emily (PhoenixCaelestis) (talk) 11:20, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. The proposed title is a clear NPOV violation, being seriously biased against Russia. No matter the attitude towards the invader, giving the article a title officially banned by the major belligerent is POV, while the current title is more neutral, relatively common and accurate (we have a 1-year long Israeli invasion of Gaza Strip, why not a 3-year invasion of Ukraine?). Moreover, overriding the established consensus could mean renaming the article in other languages, including Russian or Ukrainian Wikis. Despite not listed as a criterion, this could lead to backlash from Russian propaganda will probably be the reason for banning either Russian or entire Wiki in Russia. The current title also reflects the real nature of the conflict better. Russian annexed Crimea and created DPR and LPR in 2014, which resulted in a small-scale Donbas War between 2014 and 2022. It ended with Russian recognizing the republics and then entering Ukraine in 2022. Making these events "a prelude" to what RS call the full-scale war will bring unnecessary confusion and diminish the influence of the first 8 years of war. And would also mean that DPR and LPR fought the Donbas War as separate entities rather than puppet states. Eagowl | talk | 23:35, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The proposed title is a clear NPOV violation, being seriously biased against Russia. No matter the attitude towards the invader, giving the article a title officially banned by the major belligerent is POV Maybe take a look at WP:YESBIAS; this could lead to backlash from Russian propaganda will probably be the reason for banning either Russian or entire Wiki in Russia maybe see WP:NOTCENSORED (though there may be a more precise policy for that point) Placeholderer (talk) 03:48, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support TLDR: Move this to Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present) or Russia–Ukraine or whatever; restructure/move Russo-Ukrainian War to Russo-Ukrainian War (2014–2015)—preferred—or Russo-Ukrainian War (2014–2022); make a new Russo-Ukrainian conflict article that includes, but goes beyond, both.
If Russia invades Georgia, will we say that's the same 2008 Russo-Georgian War? If North Korea invades South Korea, will we say that that's the same Korean War? If the Shawnee declare an insurrection, will we say that's part of Tecumseh's Rebellion? None of those would make any sense. Even if a conflict doesn't technically/formally end during a long pause, and so a resumption of hostilities is technically/formally (according to some or several) a resumption of the same conflict, it is most useful for the encyclopedia to have separate articles. I find the source-counting boring and bureaucratic so I'll just say WP:IAR. The 2022 invasion is a drastically different event from 2014. I think it's unhelpful to say the 2022 invasion article is a subset of the 2014 war article. It has cannibalized a substantial amount of the 2014 war article. We can cover both more adequately if we cover the 2022 events separately from the 2014 events, though as within the same broader conflict.
I also generally think the topic needs to split into more articles. I support having an article for: 2022-started events (as a separate war article); the 2022 invasion specifically (see discussion below); the war from 2014 to Minsk; and the broader conflict that covers both—plus side-topic articles like about peace negotiations. I think a broader conflict article should talk about, for instance, the Crimea dispute (which existed before 2014) as well as the intermittent conflict between Minsk and 2022.
This comment is written from a perspective that 2022 events are a separate war from 2014. However, even if sources unanimously said the 2022 invasion was part of the 2014 war, that doesn't make the having of separate articles for "War, 2014–2022" and "War, 2022–present" wrong or contradictory. I support moving this page, then discussing on the 2014 page what to do with that page. Whether the 2014 page is better off covering 2014–2015 or 2014–2022, this 2022 page can and should still be moved and separated. We can have articles for different parts of one war. We (i.e Wikipedia, not me specifically) broke up the timeline article into phases since it was the only practical solution. Having distinct articles for 2014 and 2022 is the practical solution here, too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Placeholderer (talk • contribs) 14:16, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose, this article is still about the conflict that began as an invasion. The only reason it is referred to as the "Russo-Ukrainian war" in the media is that this term is shorter and more casual than "invasion". However, it is also ambiguous, as nearly everything related to Russia and Ukraine since 2014 is labeled the Russo-Ukrainian war. "Russia-Ukraine war" is not a better alternative, as it would also contradict the most titles for conflicts between two countries here on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tobiasi0 (talk • contribs)
  • Oppose: The needless creation of redundant articles and forks "for a temporary period" without a clear plan for how to address them in the future is deeply problematic. I'm concerned about the potential this has to amplify rather than reduce redundancies, and result in more reader confusion due to the mess it will make of naming conventions of multiple articles/forks related to "Russian invasion of Ukraine" as well as "Russo-Ukrainian War". I also agree with a comment above that states this looks like a solution in need of a problem. --Katangais (talk) 00:28, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Would you support this as a clear plan? I assert that the proposed move makes sense regardless of particulars of what's technically the same war Placeholderer (talk) 02:44, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "I support moving this page, then discussing on the 2014 page what to do with that page. Whether the 2014 page is better off covering 2014–2015 or 2014–2022, this 2022 page can and should still be moved and separated." This is the definition of an unclear plan. It's the same problem as the comment in the original move proposal - let's move the page now, and figure out the rest later, here are several possible outcomes. I am deeply skeptical of this thinking. Since the naming conventions of an entirely separate article (and its sublist of related articles) will be affected, reach consensus on a clear alternative for what to do with the other namespace now or I cannot support this move proposal as is. The "temporary" period of confusion referenced in the OP in which we'll have redundant namespaces simultaneously existing will severely hamper our ability to inform the readership in the meantime. It may be drawn out over months by further discussion, especially if the editorship fails to reach a quick consensus (and if the comments here are any indication, we won't). Katangais (talk) 19:41, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I hope to clearly express that the scope of this article should be 2022–present, and the scope of the 2014 article should not include 2022–present. Do you agree? Placeholderer (talk) 19:50, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think whatever occupies the namespace "Russo-Ukrainian War" should exist as a general article covering the whole conflict (2014–present). That's my primary preference. BTW we already have an article for the "War, 2014–2022", it's called War in Donbas. Katangais (talk) 20:04, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    War in Donbas was one theater of the Russo-Ukrainian War and excludes Crimea. There, though, it says "The war continued until subsumed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022", and I think something along those lines could be said in what is currently "Russo-Ukrainian War". I do suppose that current "Russo-Ukrainian War" does work as an umbrella article, but I worry that the current name of "Russian invasion of Ukraine" doesn't convey the actual scope of the article, which has gone beyond the initial invasion into detailing the protracted war, compete with a "Peace negotiations" section (though imo it shouldn't exist) Placeholderer (talk) 15:29, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "War in Donbas was one theater of the Russo-Ukrainian War and excludes Crimea" is a rather disingenuous remark, given that we also have a pre-existing article for the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation that covers it well. But I digress. If "Russo-Ukrainian War" is acceptable in that namespace as an umbrella article covering the annexation of Crimea, the War in Donbas, and the current phase of hostilities which began in 2022, then we should reach a consensus on that now. I respectfully disagree with the notion advanced in the opening remarks that it's a matter to be discussed at a later date after this article is moved, not least because there's a renaming tag currently on Russo-Ukrainian War linked to this discussion thread. Katangais (talk) 16:21, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If the present peace proposal is accepted, with Russia remaining in occupation of the territory it holds, has the "Russian invasion of Ukraine" ended? FOARP (talk) 21:01, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If the present peace proposal is accepted... As soon as there is a deal, we'll know it and the page will be updated with regard to what the deal actually is. We are not making assumptions; such a reply is completely WP:crystalball and leans to bludgeoning. The proposal is obviously lacking any clear plan (personally, I don't see any reason for the move). There is no deadline, the conflict might be nearing an end and more fundamental reasons may arise. As soon as there are clear reasons for why it should be moved the established page relationships, including this article, the 2014-present war, War in Donbas, timelines, fronts and engagements, should be dismantled in favor of a new (now one-sided) solution, there will be no problem launching another discussion. Eagowl | talk | 09:57, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a very relevant point: if we treat invasion and occupation as being synonymous, then Russia will still be "invading" even after a ceasefire if they remain in occupation. FOARP (talk) 10:24, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I see your point, and it's actually something to consider. However, it doesn't really belong to this discussion IMO. A discussion about the scope of this page will 100% be opened after whichever outcome, and it definitely deserves a separate discussion, perhaps an RFCbefore to determine consensus and then implement it based on what actually happens. Currently, I would suggest the events after peace would already be out of scope. Eagowl | talk | 05:15, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Completely agree that this needs to be part of an overarching discussion which explicitly sets out the naming conventions of the multiple articles and timeline pages affected by this proposed move. Katangais (talk) 01:42, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Split. Russia-Ukraine war is a primary topic of which 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is a part, whether or not the War in Donbass is included in the former. Ivan (talk) 14:43, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
... The actual situation during that period was a civil war ...
Looks like this Russian propaganda narrative needs to be addressed in the article. Why the Russo- Ukrainian War Started Already in February 2014 | Utrikespolitiska institutet - A second narrative reproduces Russia’s bizarre story about allegedly “polite people” (vezhlivye liudi) – or unmarked Russian troops – taking over the Black Sea peninsula by peaceful means. These commentators might not deny Russia’s key role in the fateful events in Crimea and the Donbas but date the beginning of war to April 2014. They typically also see the fighting that began then as a civil rather than an interstate war. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't agree more. Charles Essie (talk) 14:40, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There was and still is significant scholarly debate over the proper characterization of the 2014 to 2022 conflict, and it is inaccurate to reduce the differing positions to simple Russian propaganda (or American propaganda, for that matter). This is not a debate on the facts, but rather on what dimensions should be stressed when creating a label. The book Civil War? Interstate War? Hybrid War? (2021), for example, thoroughly explores the different perspectives and summarizes them thusly:
These two debates represent a divide that cuts through many books and academic journal articles on the Donbas conflict. One group of scholars stresses the importance of local factors and, either implicitly or explicitly, characterizes the Donbas conflict as a civil war, in which Russia is involved to a limited extent by providing some support to local rebels (Sakwa 2015; McDermott 2016; Plekhanov 2016; Matveeva 2017; Tsygankov 2015; Davies 2016; Katchanovski 2016; Loshkariov and Sushentsov 2016; Robinson 2016; Sotiriou 2016; Strasheim 2016; Zhukov 2016; Matsuzato 2017; Giuliano 2018). Another group makes the opposite argument by stressing Russian agency and, either implicitly or explicitly, labelling the conflict as an interstate war between Russia and Ukraine, in which local actors play a secondary, auxiliary role (Wilson 2014; Wynnyckyj 2019; Bukkvoll 2016; Galeotti 2016; Wilson 2016; Kuzio 2017; Landwehr 2019; Bowen 2019; Hosaka 2019; Kuromiya 2019; Mykhnenko 2020). — Goszei (talk) 17:58, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The book Civil War? Interstate War? Hybrid War? (2021), for example, thoroughly explores the different perspectives and summarizes them thusly
It's only the definition of the research question. While it may have been true in 2021, it's not - Systematic studies of the war in the Donbas that do not view the conflict as an ethnic or civil war but as a special incident of hybrid, internationalized conflict still remain to be written - as of 2025. See Asarlaí citing court decision below. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 18:31, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Goszei, as noted in the Russo-Ukrainian War article, the International Criminal Court judged that the 2014-2022 war was both a national and international armed conflict involving Russia, and the European Court of Human Rights judged in relation to flight MH17 that Russia controlled the 'rebel republics' from 2014 onward. – Asarlaí (talk) 16:17, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ManyAreasExpert Agreed:: It's too early for academic research to conclude (10+ years from the start-date earliest estimate as of now). Ironically, even mentioned by you researchers surnames' suffixes (-ov,-ova,-eva vs. -yi,-on,-ell,-en,-enko, per Wiktionary) clearly represent an academic divide along patronymic-formed surnames: both groups are within Proto-Slavic language, but only those from Russian are falling into the first one. 91.122.22.140 (talk) 14:03, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mentioned by Goszei. Staying corrected. 91.122.22.140 (talk) 14:10, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Extended discussion (please post !votes *above* here)

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Pages notified

The following projects/noticeboards have been notified of this discussion: WP:Military History, WP:Russia, WP:Ukraine, WP:Belarus, WP:North Korea, WP:Europe, WP:Eastern Europe (i.e., the relevant subject-area, the pages for the continent and the area of that continent where the conflict is taking place, and the pages of all the countries presently listed as participating in the conflict in the infobox).

Also pinging the extended-confirmed editors from the previous discussion who have not yet chimed in here yet. By my reading this is @BobKilcoyne, CapLiber, Yeoutie, and Qa003qa003: (EDIT: oops! just saw you already !voted Yeoutie, sorry! EDIT2: and CapLiber, which shows the danger of eye-balling these things) but it was a long discussion so apologies if I've missed anyone. Folks - apologies for the ping, the discussion is in the section above. FOARP (talk) 08:36, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Ukraine, WikiProject Military history/Post-Cold War task force, WikiProject NATO, WikiProject International relations, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Russia, WikiProject Politics, and WikiProject European history have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPathtalk 09:30, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrary breaks?

I think that the main discussion is getting to long to reasonably navigate while editing. Adding arbitrary breaks is commonly done to address this. While I did add such a break, it was reverted as unnecessary. Thoughts? Cinderella157 (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I think breaks are totally fine but if it encounters resistance again I'd say just don't bother; this discussion is chaotic enough and we don't need to be getting into fights about section headers DecafPotato (talk) 04:48, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Tend to agree with @DecafPotato - I don't care about them, and I'm not sure they're helpful either, but there's also no point having fights over them. The one problem they do seem to be causing is people are !voting above the break, meaning the !votes are listed out of chronological order. Hopefully this has been fixed by the notice I've just added. FOARP (talk) 08:29, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is a mess, where people discuss the naming of this article, and then use it to leverage the naming of another article, substituting and messing sources, proofs, and false conclusions. A more organized discussion would serve us better. The approach used at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, where every participant is given their own section to express arguments and respond to others, would serve us better. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 11:35, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The NOW Corpus

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NOW (News on the Web) is a corpus of news reports that can be used for research on the frequency with which a term is used in English. Unlike NGrams it gives immediate results up to the present day. Unlike Google search estimates for numbers of hits, the numbers of hits it gives are accurate and not typically off by an order of magnitude (see WP:HITS and WP:GOOGLELIMITS), and has not been impacted by Google's recent algorithm changes that make it much less useful. It has been used decisively on Wikipedia in naming discussions, for example in the recent re-naming of the Timor-Leste article. It is free-to-use, though you have to register to use it. The frequency-results for "Russian invasion of Ukraine", "Russia-Ukraine war", "War in Ukraine", and "Russo-Ukrainian war" by year 2014-2025 are as follows:

NOW Corpus frequency results
Search term 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 (YTD 25 Feb)
Russia-Ukraine war 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 11173 4993 2990 921
Russian invasion of Ukraine 9 12 14 15 4 6 10 160 17286 3716 1423 342
Russo-Ukrainian war 0 1 1 0 0 3 0 18 335 140 109 46
War in Ukraine 94 127 75 88 60 72 73 101 69235 27031 12327 4191

Obviously this is to an extent crude analysis, but it is clear that in 2025 "Russia-Ukraine war" predominates as a descriptor over "Russian invasion of Ukraine" and has done since 2023, with "Russia-Ukraine war" being used twice as often in 2024 as "Russian invasion of Ukraine", and three times more than in 2025 so far. "Russo-Ukrainian war" is rarely used in the corpus. The results from before 2022 do not support the idea that anyone was referring to the previous conflict as "Russia-Ukraine war" or "Russo-Ukrainian war" - instead neither of those terms was widely used then. They do not support the idea that the present conflict is merely an extension of a conflict beginning in 2014, since these terms weren't used much before 2022. "War in Ukraine" is by far the most widely-used descriptor overall, but I think it should be excluded on vagueness/POVName issues, particularly since it is typically being used as short-hand, however it does show that "war" is by far the most common descriptor of what is going on, not "invasion", and so names with "war" should be favoured.
NOW also allows you to output numbers of co-locates (i.e., words being used closely together in the corpus). For "UKRAINE" and "WAR" these are co-located 210,295 times, for "UKRAINE" and "INVASION" these are co-located 168,152 times. Again, "war" is a more common descriptor in the NOW corpus for the situation in Ukraine than "invasion". FOARP (talk) 14:33, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The results from before 2022 ... They do not support the idea that the present conflict is merely an extension of a conflict beginning in 2014
That's a conclusion better left for reliable sources to decide on. Of which are plenty collected at Russo-Ukrainian War#History. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:39, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
News sources, laden with WP:RECENTISM and headlinese, cannot trump academic sources on a decade-old conflict. Enough with the primary sources; the focus must be on reliable, secondary sources, and the conclusion in these is very clear, as per ManyAreasExpert, and the sources collected in these articles. RGloucester — ☎ 19:20, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You get that " the sources collected in these articles", specifically the ones cited at that start of Russo-Ukrainian War#History, includes the Ukrainian government's ECHR submissions and the Ukrainian government website, right? It also includes documents published before 2022 which can in no way be decisive of how this topic should be treated? They're also in no way a representative sample since they were selected specifically because they follow the line that this is an 11-year-war - albeit, practically no-one is commemorating today as the 11th anniversary of this war, unlike on the 24th of February which was commemorated internationally as such.
Additionally I went through the first 30 academic articles on this conflict for a search on the Wikipedia Library journal search above, and every single one of them followed the line that this is a war that began in 2022. The same goes for the search results that Cinderella posted above - a review of the first five hits for their GScholar search for articles mentioning "Russian Invasion of Ukraine" published in 2024 shows all of them describing this as a war that began in 2022. For example the article by G. Bosse which talks about a "2014 war against Ukraine" and a "2022 war against Ukraine".
Pick any journal published in English, and chances are that most of their most recent articles will reflect this viewpoint. That at least was what we saw when we reviewed the ten most recent articles from IISS's journal Survival. Here's the results for a JSTOR search for articles mentioning "Ukraine" in the title - the very first hit talks about "...the commencement of the Russia-Ukraine war on 24 February 2022" FOARP (talk) 22:17, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think War in Ukraine should be used, similar to War in Donbas. There is a trend to name wars after the locus of the war, such as Korean War, Vietnam War, War in Afghanistan, Iraq War, War in Donbas, Gaza war. The most cited reason, apart of common name, is NPOV. Ukraine is the place being "destroyed" (to use Trump Vance term), and similarly Gaza, Donbas, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea. We avoid passing any mention or judgment to the belligerents. Iraq War will forever be remembered as Bush's illegal war without need to name it after Bush or US, and War in Ukraine will forever be remembered as Putin's illegal war without need to name it after Putin or Russia. Kenneth Kho (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If this is intended as a !vote it should be posted in the section above this one. FOARP (talk) 20:41, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Knock-on effects of re-naming

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Some editors have pointed out that re-naming this article would mean re-naming other articles. But I think it's important to highlight that the knock-on effects of re-naming would be much broader.

If this article was re-named "Russia-Ukraine war", it would mean deciding when the invasion ended. In my view, it also effectively means deciding that Russia is no longer invading, and implying Ukraine is no longer trying to repel an invasion. Yet numerous sources say the invasion is ongoing as of 2023, 2024 and 2025, so picking an end date could go against WP:NOR, unless we have a treasure trove of sources for it.

We would then have to go through this article deciding where to say "invasion" or "war", and deciding whether to split the article.

We would also have to go through hundreds of other articles deciding whether to say "invasion" or "war". I foresee a lot of disagreement and edit-warring stemming from that. For example: to shift the blame away from Russia, pro-Russian editors could make sweeping changes of "Russian invasion" to "Russia-Ukraine war", even where it's not warranted.

It would mean not only re-naming Russo-Ukrainian war, but many other articles and templates, such as:

I'm sure there are other issues I haven't thought of. I support keeping the current name, but I think those who support re-naming should set out how these issues would be dealt with.

I think it would be better to leave discussion about re-naming and re-shuffling until the dust has settled. – Asarlaí (talk) 15:43, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need to decid[e] whether to say "invasion" or "war", nor do we need to decid[e] when the invasion ended. Sources already do that for us. The invasion is everything covered in the article Timeline of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (24 February – 7 April 2022). This is pretty clear from looking at sources (e.g. [27]). The source, like many others, refers to a Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but to an ongoing Russia–Ukraine war. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 18:07, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But there are numerous sources saying the invasion is ongoing as of 2023, 2024 and 2025 (some of them have been posted above). So if this article was re-named "Russia-Ukraine War", we would have to decide where to say "Russian invasion" and where to say "Russia-Ukraine war" within Wikipedia – and that means picking an end date for the invasion. – Asarlaí (talk) 21:35, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, perhaps I wasn't being sufficiently clear. I meant that we should follow sources and use 7 April 2022 as the end date for the invasion. Anything referring solely to events during that time period (e.g. Kyiv offensive (2022), Battle of Kherson) can use invasion, everything else uses war. (Like this very article does in most of its post-April 2022 prose.) To your other point, yes, I'm aware that a minority of sources still use the term invasion. There is also a minority of sources that deny the existence of the Armenian genocide. It is pretty clear from scholarly sources and the NOW corpus that "war" is more common than "invasion" to describe the ongoing conflict. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 21:50, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
we should follow sources and use 7 April 2022 as the end date for the invasion
Which sources? ManyAreasExpert (talk) 21:51, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, this is undoubtedly the reason for some of the supports. Have we even decided what to do with this title? Since the actual invasion itself was enough of a notable event to have its own article, there will still need to be a standalone article with this title (or ironically the 2022 title). I feel like a move is going to cause a lot more issues than it "fixes". TylerBurden (talk) 21:19, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The 2022 invasion which started the war happened three years ago. This RM is already long overdue; the current title is entirely unsuitable and a move shouldn't be delayed any longer. Those articles you link to should all be moved to having "Russia–Ukraine war" instead of "Russian invasion of Ukraine" as they cover a period far longer than that of the 2022 invasion.
There's currently a large amount of duplication between this article and Russo-Ukrainian war, as a large amount of the content in the latter is about the post-2022 phase of the war, so something clearly needs to be done.
I think there are two main options here:
Both of those options have their own advantages and disadvantages but I think they're both reasonable.
I don't think the current status quo is at all sustainable as firstly there isn't currently an article about the 2022 invasion specifically and there really should be, and secondly it's entirely unprecedented (and counter to all RS usage) to euphemistically use the term "invasion" to refer to an entirely multi-year prolonged war. This needs to be a question of what the best option is- and it's clearly not the status quo. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 21:37, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"If this article was re-named "Russia-Ukraine war", it would mean deciding when the invasion ended." That wouldn't be up to us. That would be up to reliable sources. For example, consider this Reuters article. It states that "Feb. — March 2022" is when "Russia invades Ukraine", and it also states that "April — Aug. 2022" is when "Russia stalls outside Kyiv, withdraws to the east". So based on this, the "invasion" part of this war ended in March 2022. this cfr article also states that Russia's invasion "slowed in March". I'm sure if I continued searching, I would find other sources that list March 2022 as the end of the invasion. But After the invasion, Russian occupation is what happened next, followed by Ukrainian counter-attacks that led to the retaking of Kherson. So, this war began with an invasion (February 2022 - March 2022), followed by Russian occupations, Ukrainian counter-attacks, and Russian entrenchment and slow crawl expansion (April 2022 - Present). JasonMacker (talk) 23:08, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Those sources tell us that the invasion was happening in Feb - March. They don't tell us that it stopped in March or April. ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 5, 2025 | Institute for the Study of War still considers the invasion as ongoing however. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 00:18, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yet in the body, the ISW article refers several times to the "war in Ukraine". 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 00:24, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's missing the point a bit. Regardless of when the 2022 invasion stage of the war stalled out- be it March 2022, April 2022, or some other point- we can still say for certain that claiming that the entire war is merely a three-year-long invasion isn't accurate. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 20:57, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right. Look at the periods that Michael Kofman divides the conflict in to here - his "initial period" of 24 February – 25 March, 2022 is fine as a starting point. If you want to draw the end date of the initial invasion a bit later that's fine as well.
(of course, let's not mention that Michael Kofman's chapter in this book is called "The Russia-Ukraine War Military Operations and Battlefield Dynamics", and opens with the sentence "The Russia-Ukraine War, currently in its third year...", and is in the book edited by Hal Brand that keeps getting posted as "proof" that academics universally support the idea that this war started in 2014...)
(let's also not mention that the ISW article that was posted above uses the phrase "war in Ukraine" repeatedly and describes pre-2022 as "pre-war") FOARP (talk) 15:50, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Kofman divides the war into roughly 6 phases: A periodization of the war based on the operations conducted yields roughly six distinct phases. These are the initial invasion of February 24–March 25, 2022, the battle for the Donbas of March 25–August 31, Ukrainian offensives between September and November of 2022, the Russian winter offensives between December 2022 and April 2023, Ukraine’s offensive between June and September of 2023, and the follow-on period during which Russia had retaken the strategic initiative from October 2023 through the winter of 2024. This chapter will subsequently explore these periods, but it is useful to lay out first what ties them together: in essence, the arc of the war, from the perspective of military operations and battlefield dynamics. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 16:00, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your point being? FOARP (talk) 16:54, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

”In my view, it also effectively means deciding that Russia is no longer invading, and implying Ukraine is no longer trying to repel an invasion” As pointed out above, the “x years of war” formula, using 2022 as the start date, is something even Zelensky does in multiple speeches. I assume Zelensky is not of the point of view that Ukraine wasn’t invaded and isn’t trying to eject the Russians. The problem of having to rename other articles is resolved in the vast majority of cases with a simple switch of “Russia-Ukraine war” for “Russian invasion of Ukraine” in titles and text. Having an article that properly covers the initial invasion period is also hardly a problem: it’s an opportunity to cover the Russian defeat in their advance of Kyiv and Kharkiv in proper detail. If there is a problem here, it is a problem created by editors creating articles according to an editor-constructed framework, and not based on what reliable sources say. The article Russo-Ukrainian war was first created by a now-blocked editor on 1 March 2014 and was moved back to that title repeatedly over a number of years until it just kind of stuck there. The majority of sources have *never* treated the 2022 invasion as a simple extension of the 2014 war, yet for some reason that’s what people on here decided it should be treated as. We have the opportunity to fix that mistake now, and the depth of the hole that people have dug themselves in to on this is not a reason not to fix that. FOARP (talk) 06:00, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Draft article on the 2022 invasion

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I have made the draft article Draft:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, as in the event of this article being moved, then such an article will clearly be needed (and even if it not moved there still might be use in such an article). Thoughts welcome- such an article would clearly need to be well-developed by the time a move occurs. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 03:49, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we need three articles covering the same topic? Russo-Ukrainian war, Russian invasion of Ukraine and your proposed 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Do you have a suggestion on scope of all three? I think the scope needs to be delineated between them before we create new articles on the topic. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 10:11, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Russo-Ukrainian war (RM might move to Russia–Ukraine conflict): covering the period since 2014 of low-level fighting with periodic flareups.
Russian invasion of Ukraine (RM might move to Russia–Ukraine war): The war between Russia and Ukraine which started in 2022 and is still ongoing.
Draft:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: The Spring 2022 "special military operation" (invasion) in which Russia took over large portions of Ukraine.
I think they are all things that should have their own articles. At the moment information about the 2022 invasion is steadily getting lost as there's no article about that specifically. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 15:56, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But wasn't the 2022 invasion part of the war that started in 2022? Since the invasion turned into a war, the war article can have a section on invasion, but I'm not sure if it warrants its own article. Where/when does the invasion end and war begin? What is the last event the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine article would include? TurboSuperA+ (☏) 16:18, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the use in having an article about the invasion is that the content would be get lost if it's all subsumed into the general article about the overall war. Look at the draft article about the 2022 invasion- I've added considerable amounts of content that aren't currently in this article. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 18:23, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is a fair point. Thank you for explaining. I am in support of your 2022 invasion article and have said as much in the topic you started. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 17:47, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consider how Iraq war and 2003 invasion of Iraq are separate articles. There are plenty of encyclopedic facts that can be provided in an invasion article that would otherwise not be mentioned in a war article. JasonMacker (talk) 22:13, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or the Korean War and Operation Pokpung, or Iran–Iraq War and Iraqi invasion of Iran, or Gulf War and Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, or (etc.). FOARP (talk) 17:01, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chessrat - Looks good to me. Might be worth having a map of the attacks launched during this period. FOARP (talk) 15:37, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Closure request

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I've posted closure request at WP:CR. Obviously I'm involved and WP:NOTAVOTE and all, but I make it 30 editors supporting some variant of "war" for this article v. 21 opposed in terms of raw numbers as of right now. FOARP (talk) 16:47, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose and still do, but since my comment was somewhere is the distant past and this thread has become an unreadably large text I have left the discussion a while ago. But even so, 31-22 is hardly convincing as consensus. I fully support closing this. Arnoutf (talk) 20:05, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a sidenote. I'm uninvolved party and I have counted precisely 44 25 opinions favoring proposal and 50 26 to oppposite of that, regardless of weights of opinions given. It should be noted that some opinions are dual but I've counted few as suppоrtive. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 13:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There certainly have not been 94 !votes in this discussion, that count is not even nearly correct. FOARP (talk) 20:16, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for misleading numbers. I've used chrome to count bare support/oppose !votes and it gave wrong numbers. In normal editor it finds like 25 vs 26. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 10:05, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's still an incorrect count. Do a manual count of editors supporting versus opposing:

FOARP (talk) 22:44, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What you've counted as support doesn't support move to "Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present)". Rough number of "support" / "oppose" statements stand correct. What is incorrect is participant's diversion into variations of proposals of naming (i.e. "Russia-Ukraine war") in this topic, which might be misleading for closer if taken unscrupulously.
I suggest to close the current request as rejected just to be clear that "Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present)" name is not an option in future discussions. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 00:10, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to bring to everyone's attention that: Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present) would be the correct variant for this page renaming, considering English grammar and consistency with other similar titles, for example Russo-Georgian war, Russo-Japanese war, Russo-Turkish wars and so on. The correct variant would be with the prefix Russo-. And so in accordance, all support for Russia-Ukraine war title should be treated as Russo-Ukrainian War. Considering the vote results and this long discussion I believe this page should be renamed to Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–present) without further delay. DA HK (talk) 04:27, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Further discussions could be triggered only by the adepts of 'root course' adepts of the war end. Unfortunately, they are more around. The RfC below is more substantive, though formal, discussion. 91.122.22.140 (talk) 05:57, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yet as it's not the common name, it isn't preferred, despite being "correct" in the minds of some editors. Rather, Russia–Ukraine war, the common name, is preferred. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 10:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "The war in Ukraine began in 2014, not two years ago". Le Monde. 2024-02-24. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  2. ^ "The origins of the 2014 war in Donbas". Kyiv Independent. 2023-08-10. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  3. ^ "Ukraine: Shelling Residential Areas Puts Civilians at Risk". Human Rights Watch. 2022-02-18. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  4. ^ "Has Putin's war failed and what does Russia want from Ukraine?". BBC. 2021-04-12. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  5. ^ "Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 27, 2025". Institute for the Study of War. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  6. ^ "Russian 'Referendums' in Ukrainian Territories Boosting Putin's Novorossiya Project". Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  7. ^ "What Does Putin Really Want in Ukraine?". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  8. ^ A. Basora, Adrian; Fisher, Aleksandr (2014). "PUTIN'S "GREATER NOVOROSSIYA" – THE DISMEMBERMENT OF UKRAINE? (Foreign Policy Research Institute)" (PDF). ETH Zurich.
  9. ^ "Putin wants 'statehood' for Novorossiya". Euractiv. 2014-09-01. Archived from the original on 2024-09-23. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  10. ^ "Putin's Fateful Choice". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  11. ^ "Ukraine, 20 February 2014, and a decade of the Russo-Ukrainian War". Cambridge University Library. 2024-02-20. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
  12. ^ "Russo-Ukrainian War". Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Retrieved 2025-03-08.
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.

Add U.S/NATO/EU as supporters

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It’s clearly been stated many times before that the US (at least up until 2025), NATO, and the EU have been supporting Ukraine’s military in the same way Belarus has been supporting Russia. Sources and all are all over the net. Let’s be impartial and add that important detail in the infobox. Humble regards 2603:9001:7500:F42:58D5:99C5:B3C7:EED9 (talk) 05:43, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The general reason they aren't included as supporters is that having countries as "Supporters" in infoboxes was deprecated, so "Supporters" aren't supposed to be listed in an infobox unless editors decide on an exception. A while ago, some editors on this page discussed and, not unanimously, decided that Belarus should be included as an exception, because of something to do with being an "aggressor" while not being "belligerent" (due to use of Belarusian territory to launch the initial invasion), so that's why Belarus is there. There currently is a discussion on whether or not to make an exception for Ukraine's main supporters, since it had been a long time since the last discussion on the subject and the war had changed a lot. I'll mention though that some people have said that they're unhappy with the way Belarus in which is included in the infobox—there's also a discussion about whether or not Belarus's inclusion should be changed (where my own opinion is that the way Belarus is currently included is unhelpful/counterproductive) Placeholderer (talk) Placeholderer (talk) 12:58, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
READ the previous comments and the rules at the top of the TP before you post and waste valuable bit-space. 2603:6080:21F0:6870:B84F:E37D:EA9E:31E5 (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair the answer A4 in the FAQ at the top is pretty unhelpful, but it's probably best to wait for the Ukraine support and Belarus RfCs to close before changing it Placeholderer (talk) 19:10, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WRONG. It is the current rule, and we follow it. 2603:6080:21F0:6870:2977:21C7:77B1:6133 (talk) 18:52, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The FAQ is not a set of rules. It is exactly what it says on the tin: answers to frequently asked questions. If there is a consensus to do so, then they can change.
I find these continual suggestions to add the US/NATO/whoever to the infobox unhelpful. However, they’re an inevitable result of us having Belarus as a “supporter” in the infobox, and will likely continue as long as Belarus is mentioned as a supporter there. FOARP (talk) 21:22, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From this alone, it is probably wise to remove Belarus as a supporter, since while they allowed transit of Russian equipment and personnel early in the war, they have played a lesser role and are overall not as impactful as North Korean troops or the DPR/LPR. NikolaiVektovich (talk) 18:25, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The DLPR are Russia-controlled, sources mostly mention them together like "DPR and LPR", so this article should mention these in the same style, not separately as they are now.
Belarus is reported as a belligerent still, and we agree they have played a lesser role, this lesser role is represented in a template by mentioning it after "Supported by". We can change it to "Non-combatant belligerent" however. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 18:34, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@NikolaiVektovich - There is an RFC proposed above about removing Belarus from the infobox, if you wish you can cast a vote in favour of it there.
@Manyareasexpert - "Non-combatant belligerent" is a contradiction-in-terms, which is the entire problem with considering Belarus to be a "supporter" when in reality you think they are a belligerent. The definition of belligerent is "waging war, 'specifically: belonging to or recognized as a state at war and protected by and subject to the laws of war" (Merriam-Webster), "fighting a war" (Oxford Learner), "fighting a war" (Cambridge), "Waging or carrying on regular recognized war; actually engaged in hostilities" (OED 1961 ed.) - all of that is the exact opposite of being a "non-combatant" (i.e., not fighting). FOARP (talk) 21:16, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Non-combatant belligerent" is a contradiction-in-terms
No, sources do say it's a belligerent, but a non-combatant. But the wording as it is is also fine.
But DPR (new line) LPR should be changed to DPR, LPR. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
”sources do say it's a belligerent, but a non-combatant” - You mean sources are contradictory about the nature of Belarus’s involvement. As for Russia’s puppet states, I favour removing those as well since they were ultimately simply extensions of Russia. FOARP (talk) 06:14, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"sources do say it's a belligerent, but a non-combatant."
Separate sources say that. No single source says they are a "belligerent non-combatant", therefore it is WP:OR to call them that. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 06:22, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See the article itself for source saying they are a belligerent non-combatant. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 10:21, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So perhaps you could post one of those sources here? The phrase literally isn't mentioned in any document available on JSTOR - for us to use a phrase like this, it needs to be a widely-recognise status, not just something editors have cooked up themselves. FOARP (talk) 12:29, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Armed Conflict Survey 2023 - Google Books ... Belarus remains a co-belligerent but not a co-combatant, providing extensive assistance to Russia – including the use of its territory to base Russian forces and launch attacks – without directly intervening with its own military assets ... ManyAreasExpert (talk) 13:31, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You get that one source, a source that does not actually use the exact phrase you are seeking to use, isn't sufficient in this circumstance, right? We need to have more than just a fringe opinion. For this to be used in the infobox, it needs to be a recognised term with a defined meaning the the majority of sources use regarding Belarus. Instead there is lots of opinion defining Belarus as neutral (though in a qualified sense). The 2024 IISS Armed Conflict Survey doesn't mention the phrase (though they do consistently call this the "Russia-Ukraine war", and were using this name in 2023 also) so not even the IISS are consistently describing Belarus in these terms. FOARP (talk) 20:26, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please refer to the article itself for the list of sources referring to Belarus as a belligerent. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So perhaps you could post one of those sources here <- asks for a source, receives a source -> [y]ou get that one source ... isn't sufficient in this circumstance. Why ask for a source at all if you'll dismiss it on spurious grounds? We need to have more than just a fringe opinion appears suspiciously like an instance of those are the wrong academics, only academics saying the exact thing I want to say count that was complained about previously.
This is followed up by citing a second, mysteriously no longer fringe, IISS source that doesn't refer to any party as a 'belligerent' and only refers to 'combatants' once in relation to troops (i.e. the literal combatants). What is this supposed to demonstrate in regards to belligerent (rather 'party to the conflict') status? The source doesn't comment on it at all. The other article cited – provided originally by My very best wishes in August 2023 – is authored by Michael Schmitt, a particularly pertinent source considering his expertise on IHL. But, this singular source supposedly demonstrates that [i]nstead there is lots of opinion defining Belarus as neutral (though in a qualified sense)?
There are limited sources that discuss the pertinent question: is Belarus a party to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine? This attached footnote contains three of those.[b] It is clear that the RfC to remove Belarus from the infobox has not garnered consensus. It is a burden on editor time and resources to continue this litigation. It is the case that reliable sources differ in opinion on Belarus' neutral or party status in the conflict. There are sources for each argument, but there is scant detailed analysis of the matter, and some sources simply take one or the other position for granted.[c] Mr rnddude (talk) 03:37, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A brief comment on the 'non-combatant belligerent' suggestion. I understand the intended meaning, but it has problems. The term 'belligerent' is more properly 'combatant', meaning that it'd read as 'non-combatant combatant' which is clearly contradictory. But, I recognize that it is also often used interchangeably with 'party to the conflict'. Schmitt himself nods to this in the other article linked. The intended meaning here is 'non-combatant party to the conflict', rather than the more usual reading. There is also the fact that 'combatant' refers to individual personnel as well.
One last thing, the phrase 'non-combatant belligerent' is in fact mentioned on JSTOR in an article about keeping the U.S. out of the Second World War published in 1940: [28]. Why did you invert 'non-combatant belligerent' into 'belligerent non-combatant'? Mr rnddude (talk) 04:01, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why did you invert 'non-combatant belligerent' into 'belligerent non-combatant'?
I found another source considering Belarus a belligerent co-combatant, contrary to the one source which was in the article already. So the sources agree it's a belligerent - and so it's mentioned first - and then the different opinions - co-combatant or not - are mentioned after. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:15, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How can Belarus be a "co-combatant" when they haven't sent any troops into combat? TurboSuperA+ (☏) 15:22, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That strikes me, too. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:28, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I propose closing this discussion because it's turned into a satellite for the Belarus RfC and the supposed topic of this section was just covered in an RfC upon which this section adds nothing Placeholderer (talk) 15:13, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The US and NATO should be listed among the belligerents, as explicitly stated in the recent New York Times article [29]. Realhonestman (talk) 14:46, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite so. See discussion "List of belligerents (once again in view of NY Times article)" below 91.122.22.140 (talk) 04:54, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adding supporters or removing those we already have are not related questions. You need a separate RFC. Slatersteven (talk) 14:17, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The US / NATO / EU should be noted as instigators as well as participants - the US was following the explicit recommendation of the 2019 RAND Corporation report, which was to provoke Russia into attacking Ukraine as a means to weaken Russia. And without the supply of 100s of billions of dollars of weapons by the West, the war would have ended long ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.50.170.251 (talk) 18:33, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's absolute rubbish. We follow the Reliable Sources. 2603:6080:21F0:6380:3CB3:3D28:B551:4E9B (talk) 17:19, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

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Notes

  1. ^ This is distinct from any individual academic or legal expert.
  2. ^ 1. Pavlo Troian mentions that of the extant analyses of the question the OSCE is the sole international organization[a] that argues against party status for Belarus. However, Troian is also evasive in providing a direct answer stating that the lack of evidence of combat operations by Belarusian troops and of a clear definition for complicity in aggression complicate efforts to define Belarus' role in Russia's war against Ukraine leaving the question unresolved.
    2. Alexander Wentker in a journal blog post (published by EJIL) posits that the provision of territory for military operations by one party against another party could constitute sufficient connection to the hostilities to confer party status to the providing state. He relates this to the current conflict stating that ... Belarus can thus arguably be qualified as a party to the conflict alongside Russia ... because it has provided its territory for Russian attacks against Ukraine. He further states that 'boots on the ground' may not be determinative of their party status as some statements by Western officials have implied it to be. I am obliged to note that I wrote a footnote in the Belarus RfC that presented the exact same point in damn near the exact same words. Largely because I was quoting Chatham House verbatim.
    3. Brian Whitmore argues that the Lukashenko regime is ultimately a belligerent because of the aforementioned enabling of the invasion from Belarusian soil, the shelling of Ukraine from Belarusian soil, and the additional support provided including the regrouping and resupplying of Russian forces on Belarusian soil.
  3. ^ Schmitt doesn't analyse Belarus' participation in the conflict to draw a conclusion, he simply writes ... and Russia has been mounting operations from (neutral) Belarus. This is fundamentally different from in particular Wentker who supplies clear analysis of IHL to present a case. You would need to look at a different article by Schmitt, this one, to see such an analysis, though it is predominantly focused on military assistance to Ukraine, with Belarus receiving a brief mention.

Splitting proposal

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This topic has been touched on in the above RM but I think it would be good to have it as a dedicated discussion. Quite a few people have raised the idea of having an article about the spring 2022 invasion specifically, separate to this broader article covering the entire 2022-present period of the war, and I've started a draft of what such an article could look like: Draft:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. This article is already very long and the events of Spring 2022 could be covered in more detail in a split-off article than they are in this article. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 22:00, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Could be covered as Feb-Mar 2022 invasion or Feb-Mar 2022 Russian campaign. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it would get convoluted before, but after thinking more abt it, it seems like it could be really helpful to split so I support this EarthDude (talk) 05:17, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This would help with the Belarus RfC, because Belarus' involvement was limited to the beginning of the invasion/war, so we wouldn't have to worry about debating its inclusion after their role was over. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 11:37, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Split made, per discussion here and above. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 05:52, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This has implications for the move discussion, because now there's two invasion articles covering the same topic. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 06:20, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't this a bit premature given the RM discussion? Cinderella157 (talk) 07:50, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There was unanimous support for a split regardless of the article title situation, based simply on the fact that the Spring 2022 military action can be covered in more depth in its own article than it can be in this general article. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 08:53, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:SILENCE. We now have two articles in mainspace with essentially the same title that may or may not be resolved by the RM. The draft was presented as a concept. This "split" has created a new article of 192,000 bytes that is essentially a copy of a chunk of this article. Compare that with this article at 501,000 bytes before the "split" which was only reduced to 487,000 bytes (a reduction of 14,000 bytes). If we are going to do this beyond just a concept, drafts of both articles should have been worked up for fuller scrutiny that could actually evidence some of the foreshadowed increase in detail envisaged. There is no WP:DEADLINE. What has been placed in mainspace is still a draft. It shown and does not reflect well on WP because it is something half done. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:35, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you've jumped the gun, Chessrat. Only three other editors supported making a new article on the initial invasion. I don't think you should have went ahead and made the article while the move discussion is ongoing and while your draft had only begun to be discussed. – Asarlaí (talk) 14:58, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd usually wait longer, but discussion (in this section and #Draft article on the 2022 invasion above) having all six people be in favour of a split- and with nobody suggesting that it would be premature/that the draft may have needed more development- felt like such a clear case of WP:SNOW that there was no point in waiting. Had anyone opposed a split at all, or suggested any improvements before undraftifying, I'd have left the discussion to play out for longer than three days.
If you do have any specific proposals for improving the article please say. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 15:53, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for splitting. Please check ALL of the in-wiki-linked references and NOTEs: some are not responding, as they are copied from another article now. 78.37.216.35 (talk) 16:04, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

arrow Reverted as premature. Please do not make any changes to any of these pages before the RM above has concluded. Having a page titled 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine concurrently with another titled Russian invasion of Ukraine will only confuse readers (and editors). Furthermore, such a major change that affect many articles and incoming links (practically all incoming links would have to be mass-retargeted) would require a formal WP:SPLIT proposal and obtain an adequate level of consensus. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:46, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This section is/was a formal WP:SPLIT proposal - I only closed it prematurely because it seemed like there was unanimous WP:SNOW consensus in favour, but given two users have since come out against it I will reinstate the notice on the article to leave more time for discussion. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 07:56, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that in the long-run, we will eventually find a very solid consensus for the kind of split you proposed. When we look at past inter-state wars, there are many examples where a separate article exists for the actions/operations/campaigns which brought the conflict into being, in addition to the larger article encompassing that conflict as a whole (and obviously many other articles about its noteworthy events/campaigns/battles). We may even find that such a split is the best solution to the ongoing discussion about what to do with the current article, its title, and the other article about the pre-2022 conflict in Donbas, I'm inclined to suggest something along those lines at least.
My personal view is that in the end there should be three separate articles:
  1. Russia-Ukraine conflict (2014-2022) or alternative title: War in Donbas (2014-2022)
  2. Russo-Ukrainian War (2022-end of hostilities)
  3. Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022)
There will still be much to discuss before anything approaching consensus. Many will continue to insist that 1. and 2. should be combined, in support of which I have yet to see any compelling arguments presented. Article 3 would focus only on the immediate lead up to the invasion (as background), and the key military, political and social/cultural developments of the first month of the war, up to the Russian withdrawal from Kyiv/Chernihiv/Sumy oblasts. The discussion in the current move proposal has become extremely muddled and difficult to follow because there are so many different issues being argued about. We should reassess your split proposal in the near future, I feel it's long overdue to have a separate article about the initial invasion, but it's not clear if there's a consensus from other editors on that yet. Toadchavay (talk) 14:40, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This split proposal is precisely for the purpose of determining such a consensus either way. I would appreciate it if anyone who doesn't think there should be a separate article for the initial 2022 invasion makes their position clear- don't want another situation where in e.g. a week's time there seems to be consensus for a split but then everyone who opposes it comes out of the woodwork as soon as the discussion is closed again. Really there are three questions here:
1) Whether to split- yes/no
2) In the event of a split, what to title the new article- "2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine" or something else
3) When to perform the split- immediately, or after the closing of the RM Chessrat (talk, contributions) 15:11, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1) Yes, 2) That's an OK title, 3) I'm OK both with waiting and with doing it now. FOARP (talk) 16:19, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1) Also yes, 2) Agree it's ok, and I do think "2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine" would be best, 3) I think the move doesn't necessarily conflict with the RM. Even if the RM does decide that this whole article is one invasion of the 2014 war, it would still probably make sense to have a separate article for the initial invasion and have this article be the main, broader Invasion–Present page. As such, I don't think waiting for the RM is necessary. However, in this draft, "marking the beginning of the ongoing Russo–Ukrainian War" could have a "disputed—discuss" tag after "beginning", linking to the RM Placeholderer (talk) 18:18, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1. I am in favor of the split you have proposed.
2. Not sure if including the year 2022 is necessary. What do other editors think?
3. No opinion
SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1) Yes, but split not the entire March-April section, only events in the Northern Ukraine. 2) No, inappropriate. The invasion continued after April negotiations in Donbas. More appropriate would be " 2022 Northern Ukraine campaign" or similar. 3) The discussion is a massive one, and its outcome will determine whether the split is really needed, so wait. Eagowl | talk | 23:40, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See Northern front of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: what you are proposing is essentially already in existence. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 23:46, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then the move seems to be an excessive measure. The April 2022 events only relate to the northern front, so separating active fighting in the beginning and the remaining events will just add confusion. Eagowl | talk | 00:38, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with a split with title including 2022, something I brought up in the name change RM. But this split should not be done until the Russo-Ukrainian war name issue above is resolved and I think this discussion should not have even taken place until that was over. Yeoutie (talk) 14:57, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also @Yeoutie, SaintPaulOfTarsus, and Eagowl:. FOARP (talk) 12:52, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no consensus for this article to be renamed, i.e. no consensus for a change in scope. InfiniteNexus (talk) 15:55, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely! Splitting of this article is contingent on the title of the
Main article: Russo-Ukrainian War
As there is no consensus in the discussion on its page, as well as a clear absence of academic analysis whether the war is continuous since 2014 (@FOARP kindly added 'Historiography' subheading under the History to illustrate it), scope and status quo of this article should be kept as is. Thank you 91.122.22.140 (talk) 18:19, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see no benefit in such a split. Firstly, the scope of the article (the end date) would be based on WP:ANALYSIS since we are not seeing a consensus in sources delineating the "invasion" from the ongoing conflict as opposed to the clear delineation pre and post 24 February 2022. Secondly, the proposal was base on an RM for which there is no consensus and that there would be an overarching article for all the events post February 2022. This article serves that purpose. We already have daughter articles for the campaigns in specific areas and for other issues identifiable as major sections. This article could be substantially reduced by somewhat ruthlessly removing detail best left to these daughter articles to leave a high-level summary. Such a reduction is not contingent on a split. A daughter article arising from a split would remain quite large through unnecessary duplication of material not helpful to readers. Inserting a spit into the existing hierarchy of articles (eg campaigns) would be problematic since they deal with events from February 2022 to present, not February 2022 to sometime later that year. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:53, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, let's remove the notice and close this for the moment then. I still think renaming of this article to a title including the word "war" is something that's bound to happen given the clear direction of travel in sources where "war" dominates as a descriptor of the topic over "invasion" and has done since at least 2023, and also the topic itself will grow as time goes on making a split even more justifiable. However, that's something we can discuss again. FOARP (talk) 07:57, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are going to be splits, mergers, edits, rewrites once this war is over and academics write retrospectively about it. Right now the articles are written based on breaking news reports and UA propaganda, so of course they're going to be a mess. TurboSuperA+(connect) 09:12, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fully agree. The notice above the article has been annoying readers for quite long. It's hight time to remove it. Thank you. 91.122.22.140 (talk) 10:26, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly support splitting, especially for article size reasons. However, splitting does depend on figuring out the naming situation. I think the naming will need another RfC so that some consensus can be found on how to address scope Placeholderer (talk) 17:09, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal reduction: North Korean involvement

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The following is a proposal to substantially reduce the section on North Korean involvement from its current near ~600 word / ~4,000 byte prose length down to a maximum of ~250 words / ~1,500 bytes. Currently, this article stands at nearly 19,000 words in length and just shy of 120,000 bytes of prose. The reduction proposal is to help deal with the extreme overburdening of the article with extraneous information that properly belongs in one of the dozens of child articles. It is one of multiple sections with an 'excessive detail' section maintenance tag. The 'cutting room floor' material will be transferred to the relevant child article. I chose this section first because I am familiar with the material as a result of my active participation in discussions surrounding North Korea's anticipated entry into the conflict last year.

Key issues:

North Korean recognition of the separatist republics and subsequent Ukrainian severance of diplomatic ties; North Korean provision of materiel and engineers to the Russian Federation; North Korean provision of significant figures of troops to the Russian Armed Forces for training and deployment; Russian and North Korean denials; and Western delays in confirming details.

Draft:

In July 2022, North Korea formally recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic prompting Ukraine to sever diplomatic ties.[1] In late 2023, they began providing ballistic missiles to Russia, and in early October 2024 reports emerged from Ukrainian and South Korean officials that North Korean engineers had been deployed to assist in their operation.

North Korea substantially escalated its involvement in the conflict from October 2024. Initially, an influx of reports from Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence alleged that thousands of North Korean troops had been transported to Russia for training and battlefield deployment. These were categorically denied by Russia and North Korea, whilst NATO, US, and European officials scrambled to assess the emergent developments. Meanwhile, Russia and North Korea ratified a defense agreement stipulating that if one party was attacked, the other would immediately render every available measure of assistance. Throughout November and December, reports filtered through Ukrainian sources of combat engagements with North Korean soldiers assimilated into the Russian Armed Forces, particularly in Kursk oblast. The US Department of Defense officially confirmed the allegations in mid-December.

Ultimately, a state of international armed conflict (IAC) emerged between Ukraine and North Korea in the time-frame between the arrival of North Korean troops in Russia on 15 October 2024, their arrival in Kursk oblast in late October 2024, and their first combat engagement on 4 November 2024.

Sources?

These are spread between Russian invasion of Ukraine#Support for Russia and North Korean involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I have not sought to introduce new material, only to summarise extant sourced material. The sources can be appended once the draft is ready. Non-contentious material suffices a single citation, contentious material at most three high-quality citations. Any necessary adjustments will be applied directly to the draft above and a differential provided to evidence the alteration for review.

Alterations: Set of edits per recommendations by Placeholderer; Update with recommendation from Cinderella157

That is all, Mr rnddude (talk) 18:49, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

[edit]

The section can be cut. RSs assessments (BBC, Reuters) should be preferred instead of US / Ukraine assessments. If there are academic assessments, they should be preferred. Casualties should be mentioned. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 18:58, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What material can be cut? The whole section cannot. This material is already drawn from news sources, but they report on state assessments of classified intelligence reports and battlefield developments. E.g. the reports on North Korean engineers in the first paragraph comes from The Guardian, Politico, and Bloomberg. There is a section for casualties where such analysis would more appropriately belong. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:21, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly support cutting down the section as you say, but I propose a few changes to the draft:
  • I think "North Korea has been involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022" is unnecessary
  • I think it's important to attribute the reports of engineers to respective countries
  • I think more details could be given about NK materiel support, but I'm not sure how it could be fit nicely
  • I think "culminating in its entry as a party to the conflict" is unnecessary
  • I think it could be good to get a quote from the document to say "the other would immediately render every available measure of assistance". I found a translation by Russian-state-owned-media Sputnik (appropriate here for ABOUTSELF imo), where the relevant passage is:
If one of the Parties is subjected to an armed attack by any state or several states and thus finds itself in a state of war, the other Party will immediately provide military and other assistance with all means at its disposal in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and in accordance with legislation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation.[30]
  • "reports filtered through Ukrainian sources of combat engagements with North Korean soldiers assimilated into the Russian Armed Forces" could probably phrased/attributed more elegantly (in an encyclopedic sense), bearing in mind US & South Korea also reported it
  • I think that "Ultimately, a state of international armed conflict (IAC) emerged between Ukraine and North Korea in the time-frame between the arrival of North Korean troops in Russia on 15 October 2024, their arrival on the front on 23 October 2024, and their first combat engagement on 4 November 2024" is unnecessary
Placeholderer (talk) 22:05, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Upon further reflection about that last sentence I guess that is the sentence that says NK has been actively fighting alongside Russia. I change my suggestion to be to say that more clearly Placeholderer (talk) 22:31, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the itemized list of recommendations. I'll implement these tomorrow morning; I am too tired to address them presently. With regard the last sentence, the purpose was to establish their 'belligerent' status in the body, you're correct. I'll work on wording that more explicitly. If it's ok, I'll treat these recommendations as a 'GA style review' and append  Done to the items once completed. Mr rnddude (talk) 06:00, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for taking this on. The summary is succinct and appropriate for such a high-level article where there is a child article dealing with this in detail. I would comment on their arrival on the front on 23 October 2024 and suggest their deployment to Kursk oblast in late October. There was a lot of hyperbole in the press at the time that effectively referred to Kursk oblast in general as the front where the more usual meaning is the immediate vicinity of the line of contact. In subsequent reports it became clear that Koreans were well removed from the "front" and initially engaged in training, As to the date (23 Oct) sources in the article at present appear to be reporting 28 Oct. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Brief update: I have been delayed in addressing this, but will seek to complete it by end of this week. Thanks also to Cinderella for their recommendation. I agree with the concern, I remember that mess well. Mr rnddude (talk) 01:29, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Ukraine Cuts Ties With North Korea Over Recognition Of Separatist Territories". RadioFreeEurope. 2022-07-13. Retrieved 2025-04-01.

Add Military Putin

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Add Putin in military uniform to the council in Kursk region on March 12, 2025 https://tass.com/defense/1926975 https://cdn-media.tass.ru/width/1020_b9261fa1/tass/m2/en/uploads/i/20250313/1440557.jpg Landate (talk) 11:51, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would support the inclusion of this, both in this (general) article and the Kursk specific article. It is a stunning image and indicative of bravery on the leader's part. JDiala (talk) 14:07, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A "stunning" low quality image posted by Russian state media claiming a dictator who has been nowhere near any front throughout the entire war is suddenly bravely touring battlefields.
Even ignoring copyright issues, this is ridiculous. Recent events really got people emboldened unironically posting shit like this. TylerBurden (talk) 18:23, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"It is a stunning image and indicative of bravery on the leader's part."
lol. You should probably make it more obvious that you're joking, lest people actually think you're serious. WP:HREQ TurboSuperA+ (☏) 11:58, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nice try at a save, but this was sincere per below. lol TylerBurden (talk) 18:46, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Without opining on whether this is actually WP:DUE, you need to provide a compatibly-licensed image for this to be possible, see WP:Image use. TASS appears to have copyrighted these specific images and I don’t think this case meets any non-free use exceptions. signed, Rosguill talk 14:24, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like it is from the Kremlin Press Office. Note that the New York Times also used an image and attributed it to the Kremlin. Admittedly, I don't know how this impacts the copyright situation (I'm not an expert on this stuff as I don't have experience adding images to the project). JDiala (talk) 15:14, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see what this adds, outside of puffery. Slatersteven (talk) 15:49, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree 100% with Steve and the people proposed no this really are showing their bias. Not WP:DUE. FOARP (talk) 05:23, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just a brief comment on bias: I'd have no objections to a Zelensky photo on the frontline either FWIW. But in any case, there's consensus against this so I won't litigate this further. JDiala (talk) 19:16, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose.
* First of all, it is a low quality image, that should be enough to exclude it, imo.
* Second, copyright issues, WP:IUPC.
* Third, add Putin where? Why his photo? WP:DUE.
* Fourth, it has a watermark, WP:WATERMARK.
* Five, aesthetically, it is an unflattering image, so I don't see why even a Putin supporter would wish to include it.
strike-edit: OP's request is obviously a joke. I feel silly for thinking they were serious.
TurboSuperA+ (☏) 09:54, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I myself was not joking, although perhaps in retrospect my choice of adjectives were too strong ("stunning", "brave") and it appears I did offend at least one editor (TB above). I do not think it is a radical suggestion that a leader near the front line, on recently liberated territory, is a plausible candidate photo for inclusion. However, I don't disagree that there may be potential issues here, including copyright. Ultimately, I don't think this is serious enough to argue over, and I'm happy to concede to the "no" editors in this case. JDiala (talk) 16:19, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry, I'm definetely not ″offended″ by you showing your admiration of stunning 5 pixel Putin, I'm just calling it what it is (not remotely in line with Wikipedia policy, and frankly, bizarre). TylerBurden (talk) 18:41, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Stunning image of a brave war criminal. YBSOne (talk) 09:12, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • allegedly stunning
  • allegedly of
  • allegedly brave
  • alleged war
  • alleged criminal
TurboSuperA+ (☏) 09:18, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just going to note that the proposer has been blocked for calling people Ukrainian Nazis, so given that there is no credibility or dueness to the photo and the only other editor approving of the image is doing so on the basis of Putin being stunning and brave any uninvolved editor can probably close this. --TylerBurden (talk) 18:50, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question regarding the purpose of this article

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I'm confused here but why are there two articles on the war? Is this article talking specifically about the invasion? Question169 (talk) 20:24, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a group of editors which insists that Russian invasion of Ukraine is the best name for the past three years of war in Russia and Ukraine, and the status quo is difficult to change. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 20:40, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really see the naming to be a serious issue, I'm more confused about why there are two articles. Question169 (talk) 20:50, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Read Russo-Ukrainian War and all will become clear. – Asarlaí (talk) 21:08, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You see there's an article called Russo-Ukrainian War about a war that supposedly started in late February 2014, another article called War in Donbas about a war that started in April 2014, and another war called Russian invasion of Ukraine about a war that began on 24 February 2022. This "invasion" article cannot be called a war because supposedly the war it covers began in 2014, and not 24 February 2022, despite 24 February being described by international media every year as the "anniversary of the war", but War in Donbas can be called a war even though it is also part of the war that began in February 2014 according to the same people.
It all makes perfect sense. FOARP (talk) 21:35, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, I see now. Thanks. Question169 (talk) 21:56, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Use of Baised language and source

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I belong to a country that has not taken side in this conflict. However, reading just the introduction of the article, I am surprised at the biasness of the acrticle used. The core point of neutrality is to present view of both sides in an similar manner. This article not only present the pro-ukrainian view of the war, it also use language that greatly reduce the neutrality and quality of the article. It feels like something that some pro-ukrainian media would release. Please clarify if this was highlighted and discussed. 122.50.1.19 (talk) 14:41, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you'd like to propose changes to the article, please be specific—preferably, in a "Change 'X' to 'Y'" format.
Also, you might be interested in the Wikipedia:NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content essay. Among other things it says: "Editors must not allow their biases to non-neutrally affect whether or how they include, delete, or present biased content and sources. They must not introduce editorial bias, but must include and preserve content bias, while remaining neutral in how they do it." In other words, it's ok for a Wikipedia article to support a certain viewpoint if that is the viewpoint supported by sources, for instance to say that the Earth is round, not flat Placeholderer (talk) 17:04, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct. I’ll just say that there are editors here serious about addressing the NPOV issue, and in recent months there have been improvements to the impartiality of the article. That said, there are limitations to what can be done. The English Wikipedia is composed largely of Western editors and it regards Western sources as being RS. And such sources generally lean pro-Ukraine. Content is included based on its presence and weight in RS, so some degree of bias is inevitable. JDiala (talk) 20:39, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Read WP:FALSEBALANCE. Slatersteven (talk) 09:05, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

List of belligerents (once again in view of NY Times article)

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This issue was discussed here umpteen times. But this needs to be reviewed again considering the latest NY Times article. (Refer) I am unable to understand, why some are reluctant to include NATO, UK, USA, Poland etc. in the list of belligerents when they have not only supplied weapons but also have deployed "advisers" and reportedly were involved in various "technical support missions".

In the article about Vietnam War, USSR, China and North Korea are listed as belligerents. Their role was similar to what US, UK, NATO etc are currently doing in Ukraine.

Hope people will have a nuanced and rational discussion and respond accordingly, rather than simply stating that this issue was already discussed and to refer the archives. Sarvagyana guru (talk) 05:39, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:OR - To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support[b] the material being presented. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 08:25, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The user has quite clearly presented a source. This is not a constructive comment. You have a history of doing this on this talk page, passing off snarky responses which demonstrate a blatant misrepresenting other users' positions and motives (see e.g., this and this) and generally bludgeoning and filibustering in discussions. Further conduct of this sort will get you reported to ANI. JDiala (talk) 08:38, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Where in the cited article does it state that NATO, the US, the UK, and Poland are parties to the conflict, belligerents, and/or combatants in Ukraine? Mr rnddude (talk) 09:09, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Side by side in Wiesbaden's mission command center, American and Ukrainian officers planned Kyiv's counteroffensives. A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field. ... One European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said." This is one example. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at US aircraft in 1965.[228] Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian officials acknowledged that the USSR had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam.", in other words engaged in combat. Slatersteven (talk) 09:04, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The NYT article says the US/NATO planned and directed Ukrainian operations, and provided targeting information that enabled Ukraine to carry out certain strikes that otherwise they would not have been able to. "The C.I.A. was also authorized to send officers to the Kharkiv region to assist their Ukrainian counterparts with operations inside the box." [the part of Russia where they decided to help Ukraine attack into]. "The unthinkable had become real. The United States was now woven into the killing of Russian soldiers on sovereign Russian soil." Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According to the NYT article, the only thing the Americans didn't do was press the "fire" button. It has been American weapons, American training, American intelligence, American target selection, American strike authorization, and American advisers at command posts on the front ([31]). — Goszei (talk) 19:04, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Slatersteven: I think the policy here was not to trust sources from Russia especially Russian officials. Sarvagyana guru (talk) 05:06, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MAybe but Russia admits if pulled the triggers. That is the difference. Slatersteven (talk) 11:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an astounding exposé from the NYT. Some key quotes and revelations from the main article and their summary ([32]):
  • That "the United States was woven into the killing of Russian soldiers on sovereign Russian soil", and "part of the kill chain" in the words of one European intelligence official.
  • That "American and Ukrainian officers planned Kyiv's counteroffensives. A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field."
  • That U.S. generals at the U.S. military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, "would oversee each HIMARS strike" against Russian troops, and that U.S. officers "would review the Ukrainians' target lists and advise them on positioning their launchers and timing their strikes", with U.S. oversight such that: "the Ukrainians were supposed to only use coordinates the Americans provided. To fire a warhead, HIMARS operators needed a special electronic key card, which the Americans could deactivate anytime."
  • That "HIMARS strikes that resulted in 100 or more Russian dead or wounded came almost weekly." and that "U.S. intelligence and artillery helped Ukraine quickly turn the tide against the Russian invasion."
  • That "Wiesbaden was allowed to put about a dozen military advisers in Kyiv. To avoid drawing public attention to their presence, the Pentagon initially called them "subject matter experts". Later the team was expanded, to about three dozen, and the military advisers were eventually allowed to travel to Ukrainian command posts closer to the fighting."
  • That the U.S. provided coordinates for the sinking of the Moskva in 2022 and a long-range missile attack on Crimean Bridge in 2024, and that the Toropets depot attack within Russia in 2024 was directed by the CIA: "C.I.A. officers shared intelligence about the depot's munitions and vulnerabilities, as well as Russian defense systems on the way to Toropets. They calculated how many drones the operation would require and charted their circuitous flight paths."
I'm not sure how one can read this article and not agree that it justifies U.S. inclusion in the "Supported by:" section of the infobox. Some editors in past discussions have brought up how Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory to launch a ground invasion, which of course justifies its inclusion. However, some have made that the only criteria for inclusion, which seems like moving the goalposts to exclude the U.S., who (in addition to the known $66.5 billion in weapons to Ukraine and the additional information in this NYT reporting) we have now seen negotiating unilaterally for peace on behalf of Ukraine. All considered, this is clearly a proxy war on the same order as the Cold War conflicts we are familiar with, which more and more retrospective reporting will confirm. — Goszei (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I fully agree with you, including proxy war statement. Realhonestman (talk) 19:33, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for sharing the excerpts. An incredibly revealing article that all those active in this topic area should read in full. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 19:46, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based on what is written in this article, it is now worth considering whether or not we should include
Supported by:
 United States
in the infoboxes of the following pages:
2022 Kherson counteroffensive
2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive
2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive
Northern Kharkiv front of the Russo-Ukrainian War
Crimea attacks (2022–present) (codenamed "Operation Lunar Hail" by American military command)
2022 drone attack on the Sevastopol Naval Base
Sinking of the Moskva
Makiivka military quarters shelling
Toropets depot explosions
SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 20:13, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest only mentioning the US and NATO (because of weapons supply) on the main page, the rest are just details. Realhonestman (talk) 20:27, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I propose based on this information that the following is added to the Ukraine side of infobox:
Supported by:
 United States[a]

Notes

  1. ^ The U.S. has provided extensive military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine, including planning and directing military operations.[1] See: United States and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

References

  1. ^ Entous, Adam (29 March 2025). "The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 30 March 2025.

Romanov loyalist (talk) 20:10, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support, per my comment above. The $70 billion in U.S. weapons to Ukraine (out of a total of $128 billion in aid, per [33]), without which Ukrainian lines would have certainly collapsed years ago, was already enough to add this to the infobox, but the now-revealed fact that American officers, some deployed in Ukraine itself, have been selecting targets and authorizing individual strikes, including on Russian territory, makes this a necessity. As the NYT puts it: "America was woven into the war far more intimately and broadly than previously understood." — Goszei (talk) 20:49, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose We should not have the US, UK, France, Belarus (I increasingly believe), or anyone else as "Supported by" in the infobox. That is the only way to draw a clear line about what to include in the infobox. To avoid endless discussion about all conflict infoboxes and all possible degrees, types, and combinations thereof of support—on this article and others—we should follow the deprecation and not include any "supporters". Parties should be included if and only if they are belligerents Placeholderer (talk) 03:04, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some more facts: The reasons why countries such as USA, UK, France etc. and organisations such as NATO should not be included in the list of countries supporting Ukraine are becoming increasingly ridiculously bizarre. Shown below are some excerpts from an article published in The Telegraph. (How British commandos helped bring the CIA into the heart of the Ukraine war: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/03/31/british-commandos-cia-ukraine-war-zelensky-putin-russia///)
"Clay Kaserne would become a complex staging post for joint efforts involving Nato allies to assist Ukraine in fighting Russia. Details of assistance to Ukraine were revealed on Sunday in a wide-ranging investigation by The New York Times (The NYT) that raised questions about how intimately involved the US, Britain and the West have been in the war in Ukraine. Reports of Western military planning and intelligence sharing in the Ukraine war have emerged sporadically since the invasion but little has been known about the level of co-operation. The details are likely to anger the Kremlin, which has long insisted that Russia is fighting a proxy war with the West and Nato through Ukraine. The new Trump administration has already begun to roll back elements of this assistance, developments that worry many Ukrainians over the future of their country."
It is suggested that in view of facts being reported by media which as per Wikipedia are supposed to be unbiased, reporting the role of West in Ukraine war let us reach a consensus and include these countries and NATO into the list of countries not only supporting Ukraine but list of belligerents. Sarvagyana guru (talk) 04:59, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The reasons why countries such as USA, UK, France etc. and organisations such as NATO should not be included in the list of countries supporting Ukraine are becoming increasingly ridiculously bizarre If there were a list of countries supporting Ukraine, then they absolutely should be included. However, there should not be a list of "Supported by"s under Russia nor under Ukraine.
let us reach a consensus and include these countries and NATO into the list of countries not only supporting Ukraine but list of belligerents This would require RS explicitly saying that those countries and NATO are belligerents in the war. Significant support and proxy warfare are not the same thing. As a note, the reason Belarus is currently listed as a supporter is because sources considered it a type of belligerent—though I think the way Belarus is included doesn't make sense in context, as I've said previously Placeholderer (talk) 14:19, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The New York Times article clearly says that they are involved in the war. Not sure what else you need. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:08, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The question isn't whether or not the US/etc is involved. The question is whether or not they're belligerent, which is a specific term Placeholderer (talk) 15:20, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support Every rational person understands that the United States has played a far more intimate role in the conflict than Belarus, as it is the chief arms supplier of Ukraine. But people insist on convoluted reasoning to avoid including the United States in the infobox in any capacity (either as a supporter or a belligerent). At some point we have to call a spade a spade. JDiala (talk) 05:12, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural note – This proposal requires a formal RfC. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:58, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The (de facto) RfC discussing Belarus got archived with no close. I think that discussion is very connected to this one. Can it be revived? Placeholderer (talk) 14:25, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strange that it never received a formal close. It was archived on March 25th – last week – so it seems within reason to un-archive it and request a close. Though, only a very bold closer will do anything besides affirm the status quo. Though, by my read, a case could be made that the consensus is that Belarus is a belligerent. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:48, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note the irony. Editors are busy discussing the removal from "Belligerents" of what sources say is a belligerent and adding of what there are no sources characterizing it as a belligerent. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:53, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Planning and directing military operations makes someone a belligerent, by definition -- see Alfred Jodl, the German military's chief of operations in WWII. He was never involved in direct combat, so by your definition he would not have been a belligerent in WW2. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:03, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Germany (however) was, so its not analogous. Slatersteven (talk) 15:07, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The US is as well, if it is performing that role for the Ukrainian military, which is what the NYT article says. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:10, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Jodal worked for the German army who were a beligerant, so no it is not the same. No RS says the USA is a beligerant; lots of RS say Germany was (some even say they started it). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slatersteven (talk • contribs) 15:13, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The NYT says explicitly that the US is involved in the war. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:17, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do they say they are a beligerant? Slatersteven (talk) 15:25, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have had my say, this is reaching wp:bludgeon levels, and so am out of here with a no. Slatersteven (talk) 15:27, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Planning and directing military operations makes someone a belligerent
Should we deprecate WP:OR then. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:11, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The NYT is original research? Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:17, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Planning and directing military operations makes someone a belligerent is. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Really? Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:29, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well the question "Should this or that be included in the Belligerents field?" opens the article to be a victim to the tyranny of the crowd. The correct question should look like "What criteria a party should meet for the inclusion into the Belligerents field?". ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:41, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that that is a much better question to ask. That'd probably be a pre-RfC question to establish proposed criteria, followed by an RfC to formalize and abide it. That'd resolve future RfCs asking the same question as at the last RfC that was closed on March 6th, 2025 without consensus. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:57, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the threshold just "if RS call the party a belligerent"? Placeholderer (talk) 15:15, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Obvious. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The NYT article says this multiple times. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:19, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please quote where the article calls the US a "belligerent" Placeholderer (talk) 15:20, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No misleading claims please. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:21, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The quotes above explain all the ways in which the US is a belligerent -- please stop being disingenuous. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:29, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's up to RS to decide if aspects of US involvement rise to belligerent status—in other words, to decide whether or not the US is currently at war with Russia. Same goes for other countries/NATO/etc Placeholderer (talk) 15:32, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"the United States was woven into the killing of Russian soldiers on sovereign Russian soil" – NYT. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:36, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And the UAE is providing critical support to the RSF in the Sudan war, but isn't considered a belligerent by RS so it's not included Placeholderer (talk) 15:38, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"was woven". ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:50, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In short: yes, but. In long: there's WP:V (an RS says it) and then there's WP:DUE (RS say it). If the majority of RS explicitly identify the party as a belligerent[a] then obviously yes. However, if reliable sources are mixed in identifying a party as belligerent and non-belligerent[b] or a minority of sources support belligerent then we have to consider the weight of those sources. That's the situation with Belarus. In both cases, though, you need RS to say it explicitly. That was – correct me if I'm wrong – the point of Manyareasexpert's invocation of the passage from WP:OR at the start of this discussion yesterday. Mr rnddude (talk) 15:40, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So if the New York Times publishes a long article explaining how the US is a belligerent in several ways (going as far as saying that the US is telling Ukrainian soldiers where to fire their weapons), if they don't use the specific words "belligerent" or "party to the conflict," it doesn't matter? Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:52, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
going as far as saying that the US is telling Ukrainian soldiers where to fire their weapons
And that, in your opinion, makes it a belligerent. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 15:56, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By policy, yes. Verbatim from WP:OR: This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources (emphasis added). The conclusion needs to be stated by the source itself. There's a reason why I emphasize explicitly when using it here. It's because it is emphasized in policy itself, see footnote B in both WP:OR and WP:V: A source "directly supports" a given piece of material if the information is present explicitly in the source ... (emphasis in original). That's why I asked where the cited NYT source (which is 13,500 words long) uses that specific language. This isn't a small ask, and there are in fact several elements[e] that need to be demonstrated from reliable sources without any analysis or synthesis conducted by editors. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:50, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Demonstrated" – the NYT article does meet those points, clearly demonstrating that the US is involved in the conflict on the side of Ukraine. Romanov loyalist (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has even said so. "And frankly, it's a proxy war between nuclear powers – the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia". (State Department transcript) Romanov loyalist (talk) 19:31, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A 'proxy war' is one where a nation (e.g. the United States) does not directly engage in hostilities with its enemy (e.g. Russian Federation), but instead supports another nation (e.g. Ukraine) to engage on its behalf. If the United States is a belligerent (legal term: party to the conflict) in the conflict then it isn't in a proxy war. The most active proxy wars in the world presently are between Iran and Saudi Arabia, who are not in a state of war (legal term: a state of international armed conflict) with each other. At this point you've lost me a bit. You say above that ... the US is involved in the conflict .... Are you trying to make the argument that the United States is a belligerent in this war, or that it is a supporter in this war. Those are separate categories. You initially proposed adding the United States as a supporter, but throughout this section you consistently refer to it as a belligerent. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The supporting countries are listed in the section titled "Belligerents." I think either way would be fine (whether the US is listed under "supported by" or just plainly after Ukraine). The degree of US involvement in the conflict far surpasses anything that Belarus has done, and I don't think any other country (besides Russia and Ukraine themselves) has a level of involvement that is on the scale of the US. In a comparable example, on the Yemeni civil war (2014–present) article, Iran is listed in the "belligerents" section as a supporting country despite officially not being in a state of war with Yemen or any faction in Yemen. I support keeping both Belarus and the US under "Supported by." Romanov loyalist (talk) 21:08, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I though the "Belligerents" section is for belligerents, not supporters. Looks like "Supported by" could be the cause for the confusion. Even though it lists belligerents. "Supported by" should be removed then. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 21:17, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would be removing crucial information from the reader of the article. The point of an infobox is to convey important information on the subject quickly. It's misleading to suggest that the conflict only involves Russia and Ukraine, and somehow the US has no role in the conflict. The Secretary of State admitted that the US has at least indirect participation, but the level of involvement that the NYT article describes goes beyond the common understanding of a proxy war (providing weapons and possibly training), which should justify its inclusion. Sending active-duty personnel into a foreign country to carry out operational planning, direct operations, and even give orders to individual soldiers of that country in the middle of combat with another country is more than what most people think of as a proxy war. The NYT article clearly says they are active-duty US personnel acting on US government orders. Romanov loyalist (talk) 21:45, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, only the "Supported by" note should be removed to not to confuse you. Belarus stays as a belligerent. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 21:51, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That could be done, though the key point is that US role also needs to be acknowledged. Romanov loyalist (talk) 22:04, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That header has been a headache. Mr rnddude (talk) 22:05, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't remove it, nor make other edits to the template, the page gives me template error in preview after the edit. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:07, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mr rnddude You are wrong. In fact, you are contradicting yourself. You mention "equivalent vocabulary" like "party to the conflict." But who are you to decide that vocabulary is equivalent? That's ultimately an editor judgement. Isn't that OR? No. Reasonable judgements like this are not OR. Generally all judgements of this kind involve a certain degree of subjectivity because RS authors may not use the identical words as the infobox column ("belligerent"). JDiala (talk) 06:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You may as well be asking me why water, H2O, and dihydrogen monooxide are equivalent. Why do you think it's my 'editor judgement' that they are equivalent? It isn't. I didn't define the terms.
The infobox template employs the header of 'belligerents'. The Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law (3 ed) closes its definition of 'belligerency, belligerent' with the statement: [t]he more modern term for belligerent is combatant. You may not find 'party to the conflict' in a standard English dictionary, but you can find it in reliable sources. Here's scholar Michael N. Schmitt employing the term 'co-belligerent' before clarifying that the more accurate term for such is 'party status': [t]he critical point is that it is not the fact of violation that bears on co-belligerent status (or, more accurately, “party status,” as explained below), but rather the underlying actions. Here's the Doctor's without Borders guide to IHL stating that the term 'party to the conflict' replaces 'belligerent' in legal vocabulary: This term replaces in modern legal vocabulary that of belligerent , which remains in common use to designate individuals, groups, or States engaged in an armed conflict.
I do not believe that it is within editorial discretion to determine whether legal terms are equivalent. I reference reliable sources when ascertaining the meaning of such terms. Mr rnddude (talk) 07:11, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Couple of points here. First, with H20 and dihydrogen monooxide there is no ambiguity at all. It's scientific. The issue at hand is far more ambiguous in general. So, poor analogy. Second, you write "I do not believe that it is within editorial discretion to determine whether legal terms are equivalent" but I think you're over-emphasizing the legal aspects here. While belligerency does have a legal definition, the word can also be used colloquially. In practice, it's quite clear who is and isn't a belligerent and generally speaking even RS do not use legal analyses when determining belligerency. RS are not attempting to make a legal judgement here, and I don't think we should either. No one is waiting for any legal analysis by a lawyer. I guess the point I am trying to make is that, on the !no side of this debate, there is a tendency of being very litigious when defining this term "belligerent" when in truth I think it should be regarded as just any other word where we allow editors to have reasonable leeway in considering its scope, like all other semi-subjective words in the English language. Thus if, as in this case, we have an NYT article writing that "America was woven into the war far more intimately and broadly than previously understood...the partnership was the backbone of Ukrainian military operations that", this is basically sufficient, especially taking into account past precedent in other war articles like Vietnam War where a similar threshold for belligerency is used as pointed out by another editor. JDiala (talk) 08:02, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose addition of any countries or entities to belligerent list.Support removal of Belarus (and thus removing supporters altogether) from supporter list given the increasingly minor impact their initial support has on the ongoing war. Arnoutf (talk) 19:13, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The US obviously has a massive impact on the war, so that logic would justify including them as a belligerent. Romanov loyalist (talk) 19:22, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support Frankly, I struggle to understand how some editors can remain so inflexibly opposed to acknowledging this reality. When such extensive evidence is available from top-tier sources, continuing to resist any update to the infobox comes across as willfully blind. This isn’t about opinion, it’s about reflecting the facts as laid out by reliable sources.

I support the inclusion of the United States in the "Supported by" field on relevant pages, and believe a new RfC is warranted in light of the March 29, 2025, New York Times article ("The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine"). This is not an original synthesis or WP:OR the NYT article, a reliable secondary source, explicitly details the direct operational role of U.S. personnel in Ukrainian military planning and targeting, including:

U.S. officers in Wiesbaden and Kyiv jointly planning Ukrainian counteroffensives

American control over HIMARS target lists and firing authorizations

CIA operational assistance in attacks inside Russian territory (e.g., Toropets) A European intelligence official quoted saying "They are part of the kill chain now"

Whether or not one wishes to argue that this rises to the level of legal belligerency, it certainly qualifies as "support" under Wikipedia’s common usage of "Supported by", which has precedent in Cold War-era articles (e.g., Vietnam War) where nations not formally at war were nonetheless included as belligerents or supporters due to comparable levels of engagement.

I therefore advocate for:

Reopening the conversation with a formal RfC Revisiting the inclusion of "United States" (and potentially NATO or UK) in the "Supported by" sections for: General Russo-Ukrainian War article

2022 and 2023 counteroffensives

Specific operations like HIMARS strikes and the sinking of the Moskva

The article must evolve with new evidence not freeze in place based on outdated consensus. HanKim20 (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly is the objection to a "Supported By" section? The only argument for the no side seems to be the definition of belligerency. But we can include US in the infobox without calling them such via a "Supported by" section. JDiala (talk) 01:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Claiming that any country is a belligerent falls to WP:EXCEPTIONAL when it falls to some sort of indirect involvement - ie they are not actually holding the smoking gun. Why Belarus is listed as "supported by" would give some clarification. Firstly, it is there because of an explicit RfC consensus. The need for an RfC to use "supported by" is indicated by the RfC that deprecated the use of "supported by". Secondly, we have multiple sources that affirm Belarus' involvement makes it a party to the war on the side of Russia, even though it did not actually engage Ukrainian forces such that it would be considered a belligerent (combatant) in the conventional sense. Should we add the US (and perhaps others) in some way. Mr rnddude in their comment here correctly identified three key elements to be established without any analysis or synthesis conducted by editors before we could add the US to the infobox. And then, we would need to satisfy EXCEPTIONAL as well. Saying to effect: I have a [single] source that puts the US in the kill chain, therefore, [I conclude] the US is a belligerent is synthesis and does not meet EXCEPTIONAL. Like Belarus, the US is not holding a smoking gun. Unlike Belarus, we don't have multiple sources asserting the US actions make it a party to this international conflict on the side of Ukraine. This is not something to be decided by the tyranny of the crowd but by what sources actually say, within the confines of the prevailing P&G. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:59, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Let us not use fancy jargon and procedures just to prolong and avoid taking any decision. The facts are obvious. As far I understand everybody here has agreed and have come to consensus (more or less) that USA, UK, France, Poland etc. are to be included in the "List of Supporters". Only thing we don't seem to have clarity is "List of belligerents". My suggestion is when in doubt just look at the established precedents. In this case, Vietnam War. USSR and China have been included under belligerents in that article. The role of USSR and to a very large extent that of China is similar to that of role of USA, UK and other western countries in this war (i.e. Ukraine war). I propose on the basis of established precedent let us include USA, UK, France, Poland etc. under list of belligerents. Sarvagyana guru (talk) 04:23, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. There are really two issues here in my mind. (1) It's been an entire year now of this being debated where the !no side has basically hinged on a technical definition of the word "belligerent" and the !yes side hasn't bothered proposing the obvious alternate of creating a "supporters" column instead. So, basically via a definitional technicality, the article ends up misleading readers by not including the US in the infobox at all. And (2) even on the "belligerency" issue, the !no argument is dubious based on precedent as the Vietnam War suggests, as you mention. JDiala (talk) 05:38, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your procedure with regard to supporting inclusion of "Supported by" has been 1. Not to read what people have said against "Supported by" in other discussions, 2. To ask why no one has said anything against "Supported by", and 3. Within 5 hours, asserting that As far I understand everybody here has agreed and have come to consensus (more or less) that USA, UK, France, Poland etc. are to be included in the "List of Supporters" Placeholderer (talk) 18:43, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How exactly is my comment "Support removal of Belarus (and thus removing supporters altogether)" indicative that "everybody here agrees that .... to be included in the "List of Supporters"" while I explicitly posit to remove that list altogether? Arnoutf (talk) 20:24, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

THIS is not an RFC, stop acting like it is an RFC, this needs an RFC. Slatersteven (talk) 09:52, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ or equivalent language: co-belligerent, party to the conflict, combatant, co-combatant, etc
  2. ^ or equivalent language: qualified neutral, etc
  3. ^ There can be two IACs involving the same parties or a party can be involved in two IACs with separate parties. An excellent example of this is the Second World War and the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan, China, and the United States are parties to both conflicts (and the latter conflict is subsumed within the former conflict); however, the United Kingdom and France despite being at war with Japan are party only to the former conflict and not the latter.
  4. ^ It is possible for there to be multiple sides in a conflict that are not tied to each other. See for example Armed factions in the Syrian civil war#Opposing forces for a multi-faction conflict.
  5. ^ These are:

    1) that a state of international armed conflict exists between Russia and the United States

    2) that that state of international armed conflict is subsumed within the state of international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine[c]

    and

    3) that the United States is there-in a party to that conflict between Russia and Ukraine on the side of Ukraine.[d]

    This applies to any state, including Belarus and North Korea. For any other state simply substitute it and its counterpart: e.g. Belarus and Ukraine or Poland and Russia. To be clear, all of these can be demonstrated within a single source. Each point does not need to be addressed by a separate source. But they all need to be addressed.

RfC: Should the US and/or NATO be added to the infobox in light of new NYT article?

[edit]

Should the United States and/or NATO be added to the infobox of this article after the publication of the recent NYT article: Entous, Adam (29 March 2025). "The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 30 March 2025. Romanov loyalist (talk) 14:23, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT: To be more specific, the suggestion is that the U.S. should be added to the Infobox under "Supported by" on the side of Ukraine, with the main argument being that this specific instance should be seen as an exceptional situation. Romanov loyalist (talk) 16:32, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was suggested above that the question should not be "Should this or that be included in the Belligerents field?" as it opens the article to be a victim to the tyranny of the crowd. The correct question should look like "What criteria a party should meet for the inclusion into the Belligerents field?" ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:29, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Link to previous RfC: Closed on March 6, 2025 about a similar question.
Link to 'supported by' RfC: Closed on July 19, 2023 deprecating broadly the use of 'Supported by' sections in infoboxes and requiring exceptional uses to be backed by an affirmative consensus. Mr rnddude (talk) 15:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is exactly what it indicates. Again, not a question of opinion. Romanov loyalist (talk) 15:51, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"generally, we do not add supporters." Note that the infobox currently has a "supporters" field, which includes Belarus. As worded, this RfC is about including the U.S. in some form in the infobox, with the threshold for being a supporter obviously being lower than that of a belligerent. Therefore, editors should clarify whether they support/oppose just listing the U.S. as a supporter in their !votes. The 2023 RfC on the infobox does not preclude listing supporters with a consensus in exceptional cases, which in my opinion this is in light of the specific circumstances. — Goszei (talk) 16:07, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with Belarus is the sources don't support the conclusion that there is some special category that Belarus falls in to and which no other country (e.g., Iran) occupies. They either say that Belarus is not a combatant in the present conflict, or they say that Belarus is (or has been) a belligerent (a category that Russia and North Korea also occupy).
Either (like Iran) they should not be listed, or (like Russia and North Korea) they should be listed as a belligerent. There is no third option.
Including them as a "supporter" on the basis that they are a belligerent is blatantly contradictory, and only serves to create endless discussion. FOARP (talk) 09:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – There is a reliable source, the New York Times, which clearly does link NATO and the US as being involved in this war. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 15:25, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No (invited by the bot) (First, to clarify, I assume that the question is to list them as belligerents) The brevity of info boxes means they they should be limited to well-accepted factoids. This certainly isn't that. And it doesn't fit the common meaning of "belligerent". Finally, this would be based on deriving that term from a newspaper article. North8000 (talk) 15:46, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This RfC is about listing the U.S. in the infobox in some capacity, with the threshold for being a supporter (as Belarus is currently listed) being lower than that of a belligerent. You oppose the latter, but what is your opinion on listing the U.S. as a supporter of Ukraine? — Goszei (talk) 16:09, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This isn't correct, but hardly your fault. The threshold for inclusion for the two is the same: belligerency. The distinction is that unmarked belligerents are widely accepted as being parties to the conflict; while marked belligerents are disputed parties to the conflict. There just was never any agreement on how to mark Belarus so the deprecated 'supported by' was retained by default. See the archived, unresolved RfC here. Near the whole of that discussion is about Belarus as a 'co-belligerent'. There was a suggestion to re-header Belarus away from the deprecated heading – by myself and Manyareasexpert – but it was never formalized. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:30, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Badly formatted RFC, as there is no specific suggestion it is asking people an open-ended question. Slatersteven (talk) 16:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC) Note as well that the scope has now been changed after replies had been posted. Slatersteven (talk) 17:06, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, I support listing it as a supporter. The New York Times exposé reveals that the U.S. military planned everything from strategic and tactical troop movements to every individual long-range missile strike. The U.S. selected Russian targets, provided coordinates to Ukraine, and directly authorized the attacks using weapons provided by the U.S. itself ($70 billion worth of them, and without which many analysts say Ukrainian lines would have collapsed long ago; [34]). The most relevant pieces of information revealed in the article, which all editors involved in this discussion must read in full before contributing, are:
  • that "the United States was woven into the killing of Russian soldiers on sovereign Russian soil".
  • that "American and Ukrainian officers planned Kyiv's counteroffensives. A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field."
  • that U.S. generals at their base in Wiesbaden, Germany would "oversee each HIMARS strike" against Russian troops, with their oversight such that "the Ukrainians were supposed to only use coordinates the Americans provided. To fire a warhead, HIMARS operators needed a special electronic key card, which the Americans could deactivate anytime." These actions in particular go far beyond advice, instead resembling direct command-and-control.
  • that teams of active-duty U.S. officers were first dispatched to Kiev, and later "eventually allowed to travel to Ukrainian command posts closer to the fighting."
By the NYT's evaluation, "U.S. intelligence and artillery helped Ukraine quickly turn the tide against the Russian invasion." This level of involvement far outstrips NATO or the European powers' level of involvement. This is exactly the kind of exceptional case which the 2023 infobox RfC was talking about, so the U.S. should be listed at minimum as a supporter. However, I think the bar for belligerent is quite high, and I think I would have to see a ruling in an international court to support that. — Goszei (talk) 16:26, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support listing as a supporter
This needs a different RfC. The field name is Belligerents, and it currently lists belligerents only. There are more supporters than the US, including the US only would be taking some strange side. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 16:31, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As you know, the current infobox lists Belarus as a supporter, not as a belligerent, so adding another supporter would follow that precedent. — Goszei (talk) 16:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was decided to remove that confusing "Supported by", see Special:GoToComment/c-Manyareasexpert-20250402211700-Romanov_loyalist-20250402210800 . Belarus is more than a supporter, it's a belligerent. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is your justification for obfuscating that the US military set up a headquarters to plan and direct Ukrainian military operations (which is what command-and-control means)? Romanov loyalist (talk) 16:39, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
justification for obfuscating
No WP:STRAWMAN please, it only weakens your argument. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 16:49, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So what is your position then? Romanov loyalist (talk) 16:53, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The field is "Belligerents" and that's what goes there. There are many countries which can be characterized as "supporters", not the US only. The amount or the extent of the support varies, but wiki editors are not eligible to decide which amount of support means belligerency and which is not. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 17:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How is Belarus a belligerent but the US isn't, despite having a much bigger role in the conflict? Romanov loyalist (talk) 22:12, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
per sources. Russian invasion of Ukraine#Foreign involvement.
"Bigger" is the assessment of a Wikipedia editor with the corresponding consequences (irrelevant). N Korea sent its troops and is now a party, despite relatively small impact. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, NK "gave" troops to Russia, as they are wearing Russian livery in combat, not North Korean uniforms. And most RS's more or less state they'll never be allowed back into NK. It's a fine point, but if these guys are part of the Russian army now ... 2603:6080:21F0:6380:B99B:629F:E051:339A (talk) 13:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that North Korean troops are wearing Russian uniforms is neither here nor there - interviews with captured North Koreans and captured North Korean documents show them to be part of North Korean units. FOARP (talk) 22:04, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No "Supported by"s should not be included in the infobox.
A procedural note: It would be helpful to clarify precisely what the NYT article adds to the discussion that wasn't addressed in the RfC that closed a month ago.
A necessary tangent: The reason that Belarus is currently listed as "Supported by" is because Belarus is explicitly considered by multiple RS to be some form of belligerent. I don't agree with this inclusion of Belarus. There are 3 possibilities based on what sources say: 1. Belarus is (or was) belligerent; 2. Belarus is (or was) not belligerent; or 3. Sources disagree on whether or not Belarus should be considered belligerent. In none of those cases, I feel, does it make sense to include Belarus under "Supported by". I think that the current listing of Belarus is the darkest (viable) timeline.
About "Supported by": The concept is deprecated. See that discussion for extensive discussion. Listing supporters *in the infobox* should be avoided. The main reason for this general practice is that "Supported by" is so incredibly vague. There's no clear cutoff for which supporters should be included or excluded. Within the category of "Support" there are countless different *types* of support, and within each type of support there's a gradient of *what level* of that support is provided. A supporter might provide all the food, water, and wages to one party's army; a supporter might lead an international sanctions initiative—without a blockade, which is an act of war—to cripple one party's economy; a supporter might sponsor and legally cover domestic, civilian hackers who target one party's digital infrastructure—all without the supporter even having a military. And all of those things can be done to an arbitrary range of extents—what if the supporter only provides 10% of the food, or just does a few sanctions, or just pardons one partisan hacker? A supporter might send boatloads of weapons to one party—but that certainly can't be the standard for infobox inclusion because that opens the door to inclusion of huge amounts of supporters in any major conflict infobox, which is the clearest example of what the deprecation meant to stop. In this example specifically, if you include the US, what about the UK? Or France, NATO, the EU, New Zealand, Argentina, or anyone on Russia's "unfriendly" list? Where's the cutoff? Each country's support has different types of support, each type at different and hard-to-compare levels. The worst standard is to compare "overall support", since that means comparing every single war-related action that all potential "Supported by"s take.
There is, though, a cutoff that can save us for infobox inclusion. That cutoff is if RS say a country/party is belligerent. However, if people would be up for adding a mention of support in the lead, I'd support that Placeholderer (talk) 19:59, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also support a mention in the lead, either with or without a mention in the infobox. — Goszei (talk) 20:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
100% agree that Belarus should not be in the infobox under "supported by". The arguments used to justify the present situation are blatantly self-contradictory.
If Belarus is a belligerent, then they should be listed as a belligerent in the infobox. If Belarus is not a belligerent, then they should not be listed in the infobox. If sources disagree as to whether Belarus is a belligerent, then they should not be listed in the infobox. In no circumstance does it make sense to list Belarus as a "supporter" because we do not include mere supporters in the infobox. FOARP (talk) 08:57, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No and Remove Belarus - only actual combatant states should be included. States whose status requires a nuanced discussion to explain, should not be included in the infobox. Belarus’s status as a belligerent is disputed, dependent on a specific legal theory, with reliable sources also describing them as a non-belligerent (or similar) in this conflict.
Alternatively, if the argument is that Belarus should be included because it is a belligerent, then it should be listed as a belligerent, not as a supporter. It is simply contradictory to say that Belarus needs to be included because it is a belligerent, and then to list it under “supported by”.
I was honestly amazed that some of the people who so vehemently opposed including North Korea as a combatant (because they disputed the immense amount of evidence in favour of doing so, virtually requiring Russian/North Korean confirmation of North Korean involvement in the war) support including Belarus on the basis that Belarus is a "belligerent" when the evidence for including Belarus is so much more dubious and dependent on WP:OR interpretation of what the sources say. I also note that no-one is seriously questioning North Korea being included now.
PS - a minor point, but since the previous template has now been replaced with the standard infobox, arguments that the consensus deprecating "supporter" for conflict infoboxes doesn't apply here because we were using a different template no longer apply. FOARP (talk) 06:48, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No per the comments in the last RFC, it's only been a month, and the deprecation of 'Supported by'. Infoboxes should be for information that doesn't require any clarification, 'Supported by' is something that obviously needs clarification. I would also support removing Belarus (per FOARP), as it's participation in the conflict isn't easily reduced to simple terms. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:53, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment A People need to understand how RfCs work. You are asked to comment on a very specific proposal by an editor. That's it. OP is not asking about Belarus, yet this is still being brought up by people. This will only cause confusion for the closer. JDiala (talk) 19:43, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment B The RfC is bad because the OP is not clarifying whether it should be added as a belligerent or a supporter or something else. This distinction is crucial for this and is causing confusion. JDiala (talk) 19:45, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Belarus is being used as an example of why other entries should be added, so discussing it's inclusion is appropriate. The OP added a comment early clarifying that the question is whether the US should be added under 'Supported by'[35] -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:49, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @JDiala - "how RfCs work" is that people provide comments. They don't have to limit their comments to the specific question asked. This is particulary when the prescence of Belarus in the infobox is ultimately why the topic of adding the US comes up again and again and again (and again). This is another reason I support limiting to those countries that are unambiguously involved in this war as combatants - and that is Russia and North Korea on one side, and Ukraine on the other. FOARP (talk) 22:00, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I did add a note to clarify as the original RfC wording was described as not specific enough: the U.S. should be added as a supporter of Ukraine to the "belligerents" section of the infobox in light of the recent NYT article. It has been pointed out that it was previously decided in other discussions not to include supporters in the infobox unless there is an exceptional situation. As the user Mr rnddude noted above, belligerency has been the threshold for a country to be listed in the belligerent section either as a supporter or otherwise, with supporters being those countries whose belligerency is disputed.
    There have been two main arguments going on: (1) whether or not the recent NYT article is enough evidence of belligerency to add the U.S. to the infobox as a supporter of Ukraine, as an exceptional situation; and (2) whether or not supporters should be included in the infobox at all, no matter what the situation is. The first argument has more to do with the RfC.
    So, to simplify the main issue of the RfC – the question is whether or not the U.S. should be added to the infobox as a supporter. Romanov loyalist (talk) 22:15, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "the question is whether or not the U.S. should be added to the infobox as a supporter" - which, to be clear, is a question that has been asked and answered repeatedly. The fact that the answer to this is already clear from previous discussion is why the discussion has turned to other topics.
    "belligerency has been the threshold for a country to be listed in the belligerent section either as a supporter or otherwise, with supporters being those countries whose belligerency is disputed" - The fact that this is a highly problematic, self-contradictory approach, is the entire reason why the discussion has swung around to removing Belarus so as to end the thing that is driving these continuous "what about the US?" discussions. FOARP (talk) 22:24, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have read some of the previous discussions regarding supporters in infoboxes, and there is not a consistent explanation on what qualifies as an exemption to be listed as a supporter. The conclusion of that RfC says the use of "supported by" in certain instances is to be decided on specific article talk pages. Romanov loyalist (talk) 02:54, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The conclusion of that RfC says the use of "supported by" in certain instances is to be decided on specific article talk pages.
    Precisely. TurboSuperA+(connect) 11:29, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. We have recently had an RFC on this. While it was closed as "no consensus", I don't think editors will say there have been any changes to warrant inclusion. There is a lot of WP:SQS going on in this whole topic area.
I am writing this so that editors don't waste their time with another fruitless RFC. Ping for @Romanov loyalist, might be useful as this RFC is pretty much exactly the same as the previous one.
This is not a pro-UA vs pro-RUS issue either, it as a pro-narrative vs pro-WikiPolicy issue. Per WP:RS and WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE the inclusions seem like a no-brainer. Those arguing against inclusion have the argument: "Supported by has been deprecated from the infobox" and if you claim there are exceptional circumstances per WP:RS, they will simply repeat that supported by is deprecated and that they are not convinced that the US has been done enough to be called a belligerent.
Two issues are immediately evident. 1) Disputed decisions on Wikipedia are decided by a consensus among WP:RS and strength of arguments in RFCs, not majority opinion; 2) editors conflate "belligerent" and "supporter", citing the deprecation RFC, while that RFC did not deprecate supporters in all cases, thus "belligerent" and "supporter" are still separate categories with separate criteria.
This whole quagmire started with an RFC over on the template talk page for the military conflict infobox on the deprecation of the Supported by parameter. The RFC was closed as "deprecate" but with a caveat: "However, editors must note that this does not constitute a complete ban on such sections in infoboxes ... these circumstances would be rare ... inclusion would require an affirmative consensus at the article." diff
Some editors have understood "consensus" to mean "consensus of opinion", but it doesn't mean that, per WP:DISCUSSCONSENSUS: "editors open a section on the associated talk page and try to work out the dispute through discussion, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense". I have tried getting this clarified on the template talk page, but that went nowhere.
Before any RFC of this nature can proceed "the infobox supporter problem" has to be solved. Either the language in the close of the template RFC is clarified or another discussion/RFC on the issue is done, as there seems to be clear friction/confusion among editors as to the consequences of that RFC.
The military conflict infobox appears on some ~25000 Wikipedia articles. A decision that potentially affects over 25000 articles was made based on ~13 !votes. Those 13 votes are overriding everyone on this talk page arguing for inclusion, WP:CONLEVEL problem.
At least one editor was motivated by concerns about how it might reflect on Ukraine in regards to the current conflict: "This is all the more problematic in articles about active wars in progress, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, where a major point of one side’s propaganda is the characterization of non-combatants as involved." link Not surprisingly, that same editor had no problems with leaving Belarus in as a supporter, making the argument we have all heard dozens of times here before, Belarus is left in for "providing its territory for invasion and attacks". link
This begs the question: Who drew this arbitrary line in the sand for what warrants inclusion as a supporter and what doesn't? No WP:RS say it, it is pure WP:OR and WP:SYNTH.
I have made a comment in the previous RFC I have listed many WP:RS ( 1, 2) where a clear consensus among them can be seen:
  • The military and financial aid provided to Ukraine by the US and EU is "crucial", "unprecedented", "significant", "extraordinary" and Ukraine would not be able to continue fighting the war without that support.
  • Ukraine and US, EU are consistently referred to as "allies" and "partners".
  • US and EU have both taken active and unprecedented measures to hurt Ukraine's adversary in the conflict with the stated goal of hurting Russia's ability to wage war.
It can be seen from an airplane that the infobox needs updating. But, the magic line set by editors of "using a country's territory for attacks" has not been crossed, and therefore they argue against inclusion. Clear violation of WP:NPOV, as that criteria just so happens to include Belarus (Russia's ally) and no one else.
It also means that "support" has been limited by geography, so even in clear cases such as these where a country is literally (in the true sense of the word) completely propped up and armed by foreign powers to continue waging a war against a common adversary, those foreign powers cannot be included as supporters.
In any other case all these discussions wouldn't be needed, let alone all these RFCs. Of course, all this bureaucracy and litigation suit the exclusion side, because as long as we're "discussing" and "RFCing" the status quo remains.
This RFC is a waste of time. Nothing will change on this talk page, the changes have to be made and come from elsewhere. There are a lot of things wrong and litigating it all would be a nightmare (another convenience for the exclusionists).
Re: Belarus. There are enough WP:RS to justify having Belarus as an ally of Russia (or belligerent) in the infobox; and in that way US (and others) can be added as supporters. This is a clear, categorical separation between Belarus and the US (and others) that reflects the differences in their involvement. Problem solved.
With all that said, I have no desire to keep repeating the same arguments with the same editors. Nor do I have the Wikipedia experience and know-how to know where and how to fix the issues I have identified. I wrote the above so that other editors can see what has already been tried and not waste their time coming to the same result. I hope that I have helped some editors by articulating issues they themselves have recognised, and in that way gave them ideas for more productive ways forward.
Happy debating and editing! TurboSuperA+(connect) 09:39, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is a severe wall of text (it's ~ 7,500 bytes | ~ 1,000 words [that's middle school essay length]). You can use {{pb}} to paragraph text without having to create a new line rather than returning twice and re-indenting. You probably don't need a new paragraph every few lines. You may want to consider displacing some of this information either into footnotes or collapsed sections to reduce the visual space occupied within the discussion, but without completely omitting it. I'd personally copy-edit it down by more than half, as at this length it won't be impactful. Or, alternatively, you could just section it off under a sub-heading with a hidden note to insert !votes above the header. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:49, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for explaining all of this and getting the entire series of issues to the point. The U.S. needs to be added as a supporter to the infobox because the burden of proof for doing so has been met, in accordance with existing Wikipedia policies and the conclusion of the past RfC that leaves an exemption for exactly this kind of situation. The arguments against doing so are absurd. But, I also do not know enough about Wikipedia's administration to know how to get this taken to the next level for implementation. Romanov loyalist (talk) 11:06, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Those arguing against inclusion have the argument: "Supported by has been deprecated from the infobox" and if you claim there are exceptional circumstances per WP:RS, they will simply repeat that supported by is deprecated and that they are not convinced that the US has been done enough to be called a belligerent. My own argument, at least, is that "Supported by" is deprecated mostly because there's no way to rigorously include it. I'm not saying "Don't include because it's deprecated", I'm saying "Don't include because of this major problem, which was recognized over a year ago in the deprecation". As for whether the US has done enough to be called belligerent, we need RS that say that, not OR interpretations or SYNTH combinations of misc sources—editors aren't the ones who need to be convinced Placeholderer (talk) 16:15, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The "supported by" RfC does not say that an exemption to list a country as a supporter requires the use of legalistic terms, so that is WP:OR. Romanov loyalist (talk) 16:46, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand your point, or how it relates to my comment Placeholderer (talk) 17:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that the previous RfC concluded that a country can be listed as a supporter in exceptional circumstances, and the conclusion does not say that RS need to explicitly call the country a "belligerent" for it to be an exceptional circumstance. So if a country is providing support and RS are describing that support in terms indicating it is exceptional, then it can be listed. Romanov loyalist (talk) 00:42, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, including parties as belligerent is separate from including parties under "Supported by".
As for including support, it's my position that I don't think that it's best to include *in the infobox* even in cases where the support is super significant for the war. This discussion includes some of my reasoning—for one thing, US support is exceptional here in its (nominal) size more than in its effect on the war. I'm more sympathetic to the argument that the types of support offered are a difference in kind from other types of support, but even then there's the problem of defining exactly what types of support would be worth including—and to come up with a nuanced and thought-out distinction between inclusion-worthy and not-inclusion-worthy support would make the support field inappropriately nuanced for infobox inclusion Placeholderer (talk) 01:41, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I honestly don't get how @TurboSuperA+ can state that "Who drew this arbitrary line in the sand for what warrants inclusion as a supporter and what doesn't? No WP:RS say it, it is pure WP:OR and WP:SYNTH." and then conclude, regardless of this, that we should keep this standard and add the US under it, rather than simply abandoning this editor-generated standard and removing Belarus. FOARP (talk) 08:04, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is not an editor-generated standard. It is the same standard applied across wikipedia. I simply don't understand how everyone just forgot about WP:RS in this topic area.
"Supported by" is deprecated except in rare circumstances -> consensus among WP:RS that support given to Ukraine is "vital", "crucial", "unprecedented", "extraordinary" (all direct quotes btw) -> this justifies inclusion as a rare case.
It's very straightforward. Nobody is disputing the WP:RS consensus. TurboSuperA+(connect) 10:40, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"I don't think that it's best to include *in the infobox* even in cases where the support is super significant for the war."
But that's like your opinion man. If you want the exception clause removed, you can start a new RFC on the issue. But as it stands now, exceptions are allowed. TurboSuperA+(connect) 11:25, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no "exception clause" that says supporters must be listed whenever a source says support is exceptional. Consensus is needed to add supporters Placeholderer (talk) 23:43, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Consensus is needed to add supporters"
And what is consensus on Wikipedia?
WP:DCON: "Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy."
WP:DISCUSSCONSENSUS: "When agreement cannot be reached through editing alone, the consensus-forming process becomes more explicit: editors open a section on the associated talk page and try to work out the dispute through discussion, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense"
WP:DISCARD: "Consensus is not determined by counting heads or counting votes, nor is it determined by the closer's own views about what action or outcome is most appropriate. The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community, after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue."
Consensus on Wikipedia has never been about consensus of opinion; editors' feelings and opinions on a topic do not trump WP:RS. TurboSuperA+(connect) 05:34, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's some miscommunication. I absolutely accept that RS call US support for Ukraine unprecedented/crucial/etc. What I do not accept is that we must put everything that RS say in the infobox—this view is consistent with WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Further, it is impossible to have a rigorous standard of where to draw the line of which "Supporters" to include in the infobox.
It's not my opinion that the US is below some "support threshold" for inclusion as a supporter.
It is my opinion that, because it is impossible to rigorously include "Supporters" in the infobox, they should not be included in the infobox. It is my opinion that it's inappropriate to stamp an arbitrary binary cutoff between countries being "Supporters" and being, by comparison, nothing at all.
An RfC is literally a forum for opinion collecting. If we could "just go by what RS say" all the time, we wouldn't need talk pages Placeholderer (talk) 02:22, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy ping since I for one didn't notice your reply at first @TurboSuperA+ Placeholderer (talk) 02:34, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree with you had that been the consensus from the beginning. For some three years nobody had a problem with Belarus as a supporter. When editors started asking for US et al. to be included then the response was "Well... how about we get rid of the parameter?" TurboSuperA+(connect) 03:47, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In fairness, there have been two major changes since the start of the war—Belarus has become a much smaller part comparatively, and there was the deprecation RfC.
In the first completed RfC on Ukraine support in this infobox, only one !vote explicitly said Belarus should be removed if Ukraine's suppliers weren't added. I think this point didn't go very far because Belarus's support was understood to be a difference in kind from arms supply. This understanding also needs to be taken in context—when shading in a map of the war, it made sense that Belarus not be shaded in as neutral, because the zone of conflict only made sense with the understanding that the Belarus–Ukraine border was a hostile front. In the initial invasion—which this article has expanded far beyond—it made more sense to include Belarus in the infobox. If "Supported by" had already been deprecated, maybe it would have been included as a full belligerent instead of as a supporter.
In later RfCs, Belarus's listing as a supporter was justified through RS describing it as a special kind of belligerent, though this reasoning was problematic, as has been discussed Placeholderer (talk) 14:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"a difference in kind from arms supply."
That's a mischaracterisation of the support given to Ukraine, it is not just "arms supplies". The foreign support also pays the Ukrainian government's salaries, pays the pensions, healthcare, social and any other costs a country has, as Ukraine has virtually no income of its own.
In addition to that, it has now been confirmed that US has also been sharing intelligence with Ukraine, intelligence which directly helped Ukraine find targets to strike and put together combat missions. "A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field." NYT/archive TurboSuperA+(connect) 15:05, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mean to try to express support for keeping Belarus as a supporter, I just mean to rationalize why it was included as a supporter to begin with Placeholderer (talk) 15:49, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know, but then as soon as that criteria could apply to supporters of Ukraine the parameter was removed. Now it's back.
That's why I wanted to revisit the deprecation RfC, to either remove the exception, to revoke the deprecation, or make it more clear which kind of exceptions are allowed. I don't really care which it is, I just want us all to stop wasting time having the same discussions over and over. In my opinion that RfC is responsible for the mess we're in now. If "Supported by:" had never been deprecated we wouldn't be having these discussions. TurboSuperA+(connect) 15:55, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If "Supported by:" had never been deprecated we wouldn't be having these discussions. This just isn't borne out by the facts. There were four RfCs to include Ukraine's supporters in the infobox before the deprecation of the sub-heading. There were at least a dozen discussions (whether edit-requests or random talk page threads) to do so as well. There have been a further two RfCs about the same thing since that deprecation, and probably another at least a dozen discussions outside RfCs. There have only really been two changes in this time: the usernames of those participating and the number of users participating. The second RfC was attended by over 60 editors, the sixth by about 12. Even the arguments are pretty much the same. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:13, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And yet the deprecation is repeatedly cited as a reason why the US shouldn't be added.
"The deprecation of 'Supported by' was meant to stop this, I don't see why it should be resurrected here." link
"Arguing that the RfC deprecating "supported by" somehow doesn't apply here is splitting hairs." link
"Please read the FAQ on this page. "Supported by" is deprecated." link
"Supporter is deprecated for a reason." link
And so on and so on... TurboSuperA+(connect) 18:34, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The more important issue is whether it's better or worse to have groups listed as supporters in the infobox. It shouldn't matter if the arguments around this have shifted over time, except as those arguments get more or less compelling.
"the exception" is that supporters can be listed in the infobox if editors think it's appropriate. I don't think it's appropriate, for the reasons I've given.
I strongly oppose the re-addition of Belarus under supported by, and at this point I can't imagine that an RfC would uphold its supported by status Placeholderer (talk) 19:13, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"if editors think it's appropriate."
This is what confuses me. First of all, the RfC close said if there is consensus to add. Second of all, since when does consensus mean consensus of opinions?
If the consensus is based on what editors think, rather than WP:RS or Wikipedia policy, then that goes against WP:DCON, WP:NHC and other policies. TurboSuperA+(connect) 19:21, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Editors interpret policy, such as with WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. There is no policy that says "one must include invent a field in the infobox for supporters when RS use strong words to describe support" Placeholderer (talk) 19:30, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no policy that says "one must include invent a field in the infobox for supporters when RS use strong words to describe support"
We're not "inventing" anything. The parameter exists and while it has been deprecated there are exceptions. You cannot say that the parameter is deprecated to argue against an exception to the deprecation. You see that, right? TurboSuperA+(connect) 19:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Editors are to decide on exceptions. Your opinion is that the US (and maybe other powers) warrant an exception in this case. My opinion is that they do not. Placeholderer (talk) 20:13, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not my opinion, it is WP:RS consensus that support given to Ukraine by the US (and others) is unlike any support given to one country by another and both the nature and amount of support exceeds/surpasses any support given in history. It even surpases the Lend-Lease given to the Soviet Union during WWII (again, this is what WP:RS say). TurboSuperA+(connect) 20:22, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't dispute that sources describe the support in strong words. I do dispute that the sources warrant a "Supported by" field Placeholderer (talk) 20:35, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
These are not "descriptions in strong words", these are facts.
Saying "strong support" is a description, but saying "support given to Ukraine surpasses Lend-Lease given to SU during WWII" is a fact.
Saying "big support" is a description, but saying "Ukraine could not keep on fighting without US/EU support" is a fact. TurboSuperA+(connect) 20:38, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let me rephrase: I don't dispute that the US has, factually, been providing vital support. I do dispute that provision of vital support warrants inclusion under "Supported by" Placeholderer (talk) 20:47, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In your opinion, what kind of support would warrant an exception to the deprecated parameter? TurboSuperA+(connect) 21:15, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The one time I did argue in favor of a "Supported by" field was on The Troubles. The situation was that there were three separate "sides" to the conflict, with the government and the loyalists as separate parties. I argued in favor of including alleged government support for the loyalists, under a "Supported by" field, because allegations of government support for loyalists was a major point of contention. I thought that having them in the infobox as explicitly separate parties might be a NPOV concern—it was the government's perspective that they were a neutral third party, but republicans alleged that they weren't. But I withdrew my argument because I was very new and still learning policy and because I wasn't confident enough in the strength of my argument Placeholderer (talk) 22:00, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support. USA, UK, France, Poland etc. who are actively involved in funding, logistics, training, media support, weapons supply, target acquisition, diplomatic support, treatment of injured soldiers etc. and actual presence of their personnel in Ukraine, should be included in the list of belligerents. (My basis is the precedent established for Vietnam War where USSR is included in the list of belligerents for similar role). Further the list should also include other proxies such as Russian Volunteer Corps, Freedom of Russia Legion etc. since they are actively involved in action on behalf of Ukraine. Unfortunately for reasons beyond my comprehension some editors are refusing to see the logic in facts being presented here. This reminds me of an old saying "You can wake a sleeping person but it is impossible to wake a person who is pretending to be asleep". That might be the reason that some editors here are refusing to see the reason in the facts being presented here. (i.e. they very well know the facts are undeniable but due to reasons beyond my understanding they have decided to stonewall every proposal and have arbitrarily decided who are supposed to be "Supporters" and who are supposed to be "belligerents") Sarvagyana guru (talk) 04:47, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The USSR is included in the Vietnam war article because "Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at US aircraft in 1965. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian officials acknowledged that the USSR had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam.", which is to say, since there is no de minimis rule for war, even this single incident of missile-firing is enough to make it a combatant. Actually Soviet involvement directly in combat extended far beyond this single incident. According to Russian sources Soviet pilots flew missions against US bomber claiming kills, and research by historians Albert A. Nofi and James Dunnigan shows that the USSR suffered 16 KIA and numerous more wounded in the war.
    There hasn't been a single incident record of US military personnel actively, directly participating in this war. There also hasn't be an instance of Belrusian personnel doing this either, and for this reason neither should be listed in the infobox. FOARP (talk) 07:52, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Let us maintain some consistency, in Wikipedia attributing quotes to Russian officials are usually frowned upon. Either you accept Russian information sources as reliable or you don't. These historians Albert A. Nofi and James Dunnigan have attributed their sources to "Russia Beyond" website. Which I dont think has made it it to reliable sources of information as per Wikipedia. Further you have selectively quoted from that link. Presumably you might have not read the entire article, therefore I have brought what was quotedhin that web page (i.e. as per the link you have provided):
    "Unlike the American involvement, the Soviet Union’s engagement in the Vietnam War was highly secretive. However, what can be gathered is that they gave direct and indirect aid to the North Vietnamese on a vast scale, but stopped short of putting actual Soviet combat troops onto the front lines … Moreover, around 2,000 Soviet advisors were stationed in Vietnam assisting with radar and antiaircraft installations.
    • I hope the above information clarifies any doubt you might be having. In case you still not convinced, I am providing some more information (source BBC):
    The UK is among a number of countries with military special forces operating inside Ukraine, according to one of dozens of documents leaked online.
    It confirms what has been the subject of quiet speculation for over a year.
    ...................
    According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow Nato states Latvia (17), France (15), the US (14) and the Netherlands (1).
    The source for above quotes is BBC (dated 12 April 2023)
    • You have quoted "USSR suffered 16 KIA and numerous more wounded in the war", if this was the criteria to declare them as belligerents then we should also count the number of Americans, Britishers, Poles etc. killed in this war. (especially those who conveniently took early retirement from Army) Such deaths already might be in their hundreds.
    • It seems the goalpost are being constantly shifted. I remember earlier the discussion was about who are supporting whom, then gradually when those arguments regarding role of USA, UK, France, Poland etc. in supporting Ukraine became ridiculously untenable, a new role was introduced - "List of belligerents". Tomorrow once the excuses again becomes ridiculously bizarre a new term will be coined. (Maybe "List of belligerents located in east of Ukraine")
    • Again as the saying goes "You can wake a sleeping person but it is impossible to wake a person who is pretending to be asleep". In case you are still not convinced then there is no point in carrying this discussion forward.
    Sarvagyana guru (talk) 04:29, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Firstly, WP:AGF is a pretty firm rule here on Wikipedia. Repeatedly casting aspersions in this fashion is disruptive behaviour. This is particularly the case on pages designated controversial topics, such as this one.
    "These historians Albert A. Nofi and James Dunnigan have attributed their sources to "Russia Beyond" website" - Nope. That is literally not what the source says. Nofi and Dunnigan wrote a book, in which the 16 KIA figure is cited to official Russian sources. The website "Russia Beyond" has nothing to do with the citing of that figure - it is instead cited for Soviet claims of US aircraft shot down during the war.
    The section from the National Interest article that you've quoted does not contradict this: it merely states that Soviet troops weren't fighting "on the front line", which is not the same as never fighting at all.
    "if this was the criteria to declare them as belligerents then we should also count the number of Americans, Britishers, Poles etc. killed in this war" - if you can find figures showing troops serving in the military of these countries, and not simply volunteers fighting in the Ukrainian International Legion and similar formations, who were killed in action in the present war in Ukraine, then please go ahead and cite them.
    Regarding the BBC article - you're omitting that this was from a leaked cache of documents that according to the same source was partially doctored (i.e., fabricated). This is not a reliable source. This is also something that's been discussed at great length in the past and it would be a good idea to review those discussions and why this claim has not been included in the article.
    PS -for the total avoidance of doubt, I don't support adding China either, despite the news that has broken in the past hour that Chinese citizens were captured fighting in Russian units: this is not evidence of the involvement of the Chinese military in this conflict as these men are likely volunteers/mercenaries. FOARP (talk) 12:59, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems the goalpost are being constantly shifted. I remember earlier the discussion was about who are supporting whom, then gradually when those arguments regarding role of USA, UK, France, Poland etc. in supporting Ukraine became ridiculously untenable, a new role was introduced - "List of belligerents". Tomorrow once the excuses again becomes ridiculously bizarre a new term will be coined. (Maybe "List of belligerents located in east of Ukraine")
    Again as the saying goes "You can wake a sleeping person but it is impossible to wake a person who is pretending to be asleep". In case you are still not convinced then there is no point in carrying this discussion forward.
    I don't remember ever, in any of my comments on this page, advocating in favor of keeping a "Supported by" field. I object to this generalization of everyone that everyone who opposes a "Supported by" field is acting in bad faith.
    I will say, I was very frustrated when it took seemingly forever to add North Korea as a belligerent, so I can sympathize. In those discussions I didn't do a good job with AGF. I sincerely suggest you don't make the same mistake, and that you AGF Placeholderer (talk) 14:08, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    TBH I think some level of frustration around the North Korea discussion was reasonable, since the consensus in the discussion was very clear for some months before the it was accepted. FOARP (talk) 11:07, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note the deprecation of Supporter was not in response to this article but to unrelated ones. Many people had no issue with the idea of adding supporters until it was pointed it was (NOW) depripcated (and then reasons why). In fact we did use to list a lot of supporters, but it became unwielding and there was too much dispute over what counted as support. Slatersteven (talk) 10:30, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox Location - western Russia

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Infobox Location - western Russia - central Russia should be included, as the strikes were as far as Ufa. I don't see that field however, don't know how to update it. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 17:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't we just say "Ukraine, Russia, Black Sea"? I will edit it accordingly. EDIT: yes, apparently the template that was previously used has been deleted and replaced with the normal infobox. For the avoidance of doubt, I agree with this move: there was no need to maintain a template which was identical to the normal infobox. FOARP (talk) 10:02, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please add this image to article

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I believe the image would benefit the article.

Active military personnel involved in the war, and military budgets and military aid received over time.

MrThe1And0nly (talk) 17:41, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@}

Source? Slatersteven (talk) 17:44, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia, Grok. The numbers seem to check out. The "2025, projected" is simply Q1 military aid multiplied by 4, so just extrapolation on my part. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 18:29, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So wp:or? Slatersteven (talk) 18:32, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Original image? MrThe1And0nly (talk) 18:35, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Original research. Slatersteven (talk) 18:38, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, it's an original image, and thus doesn't fall under original research. In any case, citing exact sources isn't necessary: "Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source."
Do you have particular grounds for assuming there's any original research on my part? Or is it simply the "projected" part that you find too original? MrThe1And0nly (talk) 18:41, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Anything we add must be based upon RS, not OR. This article does not have zero sources, so with that I am out of here with a firm no. Slatersteven (talk) 18:46, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Surely you must understand that when applying OR to *my image*, the "article" in the quoted text thereby refers to *my image*, and not the article of Russian invasion of Ukraine. Therefore whether or not this article has citations, has no bearing on the fact, that OR clearly states that it does not require citing exact sources. Therefore my image does not invalidate the OR by not citing exact sources.
Additionally, being an original image, it is wholly exempt of the rule to begin with. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 18:53, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Where does it say that graphs depicting data are exempt from citing sources? Arnoutf (talk) 20:07, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't mention graphs depicting data at all. The closest it comes is speaking about "original images." MrThe1And0nly (talk) 20:55, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The general lack of sources is a WP:V issue: All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists, and captions, must be verifiable. This explicitly includes material whose verifiability has been challenged, such as the data for this image.
The user-generated projection is the main WP:OR issue Placeholderer (talk) 22:32, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s sourced to generative AI and therefore inadmissible for failing WP:V/WP:OR. Simply putting unverifiable original research in to an image does not grant some kind of magical pass on the need for the material in that image to be sourced to reliable, independent sources.
Recent events should show people the danger of simply relying on the output of generative AI that in fact does not actually know or understand anything.FOARP (talk) 06:30, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, the image was not generated by AI, only some of the data, which I averaged with the data off this same wiki article.
Very well I have made a new chart with exact citations for active military personnel that I'd like to be included in the article:
Active military personnel involved in the war.
As for the chart with military budgets, I will look if I can find more exact sources. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 09:44, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
".The invasion was launched by the Russian regular army numbering more than 100 thousand people (plus the Donbass “people’s militia”), ", that does not say what the highest number was. Slatersteven (talk) 11:26, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have cited the exact numbers and sources for 2022 as this wikipedia article itself. I don't have access to some of the paywalled stuff either. But I believe that if it was okay in the article, it should be okay for an image inside the same article. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 11:35, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So you have not even read all of the sources you claim support this? Slatersteven (talk) 11:37, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the year 2022, I am going by the already existing consensus in this very same article. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 11:51, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]


I think with that I am out of here with a no. Slatersteven (talk) 12:03, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am citing the infobox of this article. I've merely provided a visualization of the data therein. You have not explained why this is unacceptable. If you disagree with the infobox, you need to take it up with the consensus, not my image. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 12:13, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seconded. The data in the image is inaccurate: these are not counts of "active" military personnel "in Ukraine". The estimates are from varied sources collected according to different methodologies (including the statements of Vladimir Putin), apparently including reserve formations such as the TDF, apparently including Ukrainian forces in Kursk/Belgorod but apparently not Russian forces there, to give the (false) impression that Ukrainians outnumber Russians in this war.
The Trump tariffs, with their ludicrous AI-generated formula, have shown us the risks of using generative AI that is not capable of understanding its own output but instead merely predicts the next token in a string, for serious analysis. FOARP (talk) 12:14, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No AI was used in the image.
Putin's and Zelensky's own statements are both quoted on military personnel numbers by various trustworthy sources.
2022 numbers and sources are identical to infobox of this article. You're arguing against pre-existing consensus.
2023 and 2024 numbers are all from trustworthy sources and agree with the infobox. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 12:19, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For presentation in a graph in this fashion they need to be from the same source counting the same thing. These clearly are not. When Zelensky gives a figure of 880,000 it needs to be acknowledged (as the BBC article linked to actually does), that this is not clearly a count of how many Ukrainians are actually fighting (i.e., "active") in Ukraine. Similarly when Vladimir Putin gives a figure of 600,000 or 700,000 for the number of his troops "fighting in Ukraine" we should not just relay this figure (coming from the same person who claimed for more than a year that he was not planning to invade Ukraine or annex its territory, and thus an infamously unreliable source) uncritically as of equal validity to other estimates given in other sources. FOARP (talk) 12:41, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you challenging the consensus, then? See the infobox. Or is it the wording you want changed? MrThe1And0nly (talk) 12:48, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm done repeatedly explaining the same thing over and over. If you don't get why collecting differently-calculated numbers from different sources of varying reliability and relaying them without context in a graph is different to citing the figures in context with explanation of their differing basis, then I can't help you. FOARP (talk) 13:06, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This talk of methodology isn't warranted. It doesn't apply to the infobox and shouldn't apply to an image visualizing the same data. The same standards apply to both. You're not being fair. That the data is composed of separate sources is already made clear, as they're all cited separately — exactly as in the infobox. Maybe you want a disclaimer added, that the numbers originate from separate sources, or some other wording?
If you really believed these numbers are incommensurate, you'd remove them from the infobox. Seeing that you began by attributing dishonest motivations to me, it is possible your qualms with the image are ideological and not encyclopediac. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 13:22, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I misread your last reply.
What is the "context" in the infobox, and how does the infobox "explain their differing basis"? It's just numbers and sources, like the chart itself. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 13:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox tells you that they are not all counts of the same thing ("pre-invasion at border", "pre-invasion total", "active personnel in Ukraine", "active personnel total"). It also gives a specific month for each count. Unless a single reliable source gives strength-estimates for both sides counted according to the same methodology at the same time, then I don't support presenting these in a graph because we would not be comparing like-with-like. FOARP (talk) 14:06, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The way you are using these figures alters their context. This isn't intentional, but you clearly do not see the problem with it. Let's take your very first figure. The graph is titled Active military personnel in Ukraine. For Russia in 2022 the graph indicates ~ 190,000. This is taken from the infobox which says Pre-invasion at border: 169,000–190,000 (emphasis in original). List of problems:

The infobox figure states that those troops are at the border, not in Ukraine.

The figure is pre-war, whereas you list this figure for the whole of 2022.

The figure is a range in the infobox, but only the higher end is present in the graph. This is a minor issue comparatively, but still questionable.

The infobox denotes that this figure includes 'paramilitary' and 'separatist forces', whereas this context is omitted from the graph.

The figure is cited to Meduza, NYT, and IISS. The three sources provide different figures.

Meduza says Вторжение начала кадровая российская армия численностью более 100 тысяч человек (плюс «народные милиции» Донбасса), состоящая из контрактников и офицеров; они и составили почти все потери в первые месяцы войны. Without translating the whole thing, the main relevant point is that it says that the invasion started with более 100 тысяч человек meaning 'over 100 thousand men'. The Meduza source doesn't appear to support the figure in the infobox and should probably be removed.

The NYT article states “We [the U.S. mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] assess that Russia probably has massed between 169,000 and 190,000 personnel in and near Ukraine as compared with about 100,000 on Jan. 30,” the statement read. “This estimate includes military troops along the border, in Belarus and in occupied Crimea; Russian National Guard and other internal security units deployed to these areas; and Russian-led forces in eastern Ukraine.”. Critically, these troops are not all in Ukraine; they are also in Belarus, in Russia, and in Russian-occupied Crimea (which will probably lead to a debate between editors on whether this constitutes 'in Ukraine'). NYT doesn't specify how many are in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts or 'in eastern Ukraine'.

Finally the IISS source... was published in 2021. I don't know why it's in the infobox supporting a statement it does not and could not contain. It should probably be removed.

That's just the problems with the very first figure in the graph. This is why Wikipedia has an NOR policy. This is also why Wikipedia is not a reliable source; because even though there are three sources cited in the infobox, the number only comes from one. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:38, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1) "In Ukraine." Yes, I had trouble with the wording. Maybe simply call it "strength," "participating military personnel," "engaged military personnel," or something else?
2) I may rename "2022" to "2022, initial" or "2022, February" or the like. The numbers for 2024 are from the same month (June), so that should be fine. For 2023 the Russian number is from May, whereas the Ukrainian from September. Is four months is close enough?
3) In fact, it's the mid-range value: 179 500.
4) Both numbers, for Russia and Ukraine, include paramilitary. I can make it explicit in the graph.
5) The Meduza link also says "при вторжении ее оценивали в 190 тысяч вместе с «народными милициями ДНР и ЛНР»", referring to the 190 000 figure.
Lastly, I may make it explicit that the given numbers are claimed, assessed, alleged, or the like, and originate from different sources. MrThe1And0nly (talk) 16:29, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
" The numbers for 2024 are from the same month (June), so that should be fine" - No, because they're not from the same source and don't refer to the same thing. Zelensky was(apparently) referring to the total strength of the Ukrainian armed forces everywhere, and potentially included reserve units. Putin was referring to just the Russian troops he will acknowledge are fighting against Ukraine - for example it's unclear whether he's including air forces and air-defence forces based within Russia but which are engaged in the war, the totals quoted range from 600k to 700k, and is not a reliable source.
And just to re-iterate: this graph shows Ukraine having more than twice the number of "active military personnel in Ukraine" that Russia had in 2023: does that pass even the most basic sense-check? No. And the reason why is it's not comparing like-for-like. FOARP (talk) 17:24, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"does that pass even the most basic sense-check? No."
The Russians came in not expecting a fight. Then we saw them retreat along 80% of the frontline to defensible positions, initiate a "partial" mobilization, and begin recruiting prisoners — not exactly a first pick for soldiers. Additionally, their losses were likely higher in the beginning stages of the war, reducing their "currently active" numbers moreso than Ukraine's. Finally, we know they always had armor, artillery and air superiority, as well as built defensive lines to stem the Ukrainian counteroffensive. It's not unbelievable they began the war severely undermanned and I've not seen anyone disputing it. Why would Russians lie in 2023 and then admit to more than double the numbers in 2024? MrThe1And0nly (talk) 17:36, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Add Chinese as suppliers to Russia

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News broke later today on Chinese citizens being sent into combat roles to fight on the Russian side, Channel 4 news video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2Xl7kTcLqM. 86.13.80.89 (talk) 14:30, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We do mention China. Slatersteven (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I assume they mean the infobox, to which the answer is: no, for the reasons discussed ad nauseam for months: only actually combatant states should be listed. FOARP (talk) 14:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unless, of course, one of the party's troops transit through another country for a few days and stage a couple missile strikes from there – then (and only then) can we make an exception, if I understand correctly. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We if by that you mean "a special case", yes. Slatersteven (talk) 15:03, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I disagree with that exception, but that also means I don't see the need to go and make more exceptions. FOARP (talk) 15:38, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No we should not add them as long as there is no strong evidence that the Chinese state actively sends troops to the front. For much the same reason we should not add the US, France, Poland...... to the infobox on the side of Ukraine, we should not add China here. Arnoutf (talk) 18:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"For much the same reason we should not add the US, France, Poland...... to the infobox on the side of Ukraine, we should not add China here."
That is a false equivalence. TurboSuperA+(connect) 11:20, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The reasoning argument per se is not false, but extrapolating to the actors might easily become even more than false - fake.

talk 11:47 (UTC), 10 April 2025

No, it is not. 2603:6080:21F0:6380:3CB3:3D28:B551:4E9B (talk) 17:25, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which had started in 2014."

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This is presently cited to a book that was edited (not, as the citation claims, written) by Hal Brands. That book has a number of chapters written by different authors, and this is taken from the chapter authored by Michael McFaul and Robert Person. however the full quote describes the invasion as "...expanding dramatically the war against Ukraine he began in 2014 and starting the largest war in Europe since World War II". That is, in the view of the authors, this was also the *start of a war* as well as the continuation of a war. The same book also includes a chapter by Michael Kofman, the opening section of which says: "The Russia-Ukraine War, currently in its third year, with little sign of abating, is the largest conventional armed conflict in Europe since World War II.".

Why are we misrepresenting what the source says in this fashion? It does not unambiguously support the statement - nor, as has been discussed at great length above, do most reliable sources, neither high-quality broadsheet media nor academic. FOARP (talk) 09:10, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Misrepresentation" is too strong. It's a plausible interpretation of a (as you suggest) ambiguous statement. I'm not sure it is worth relitigating this so early as the move request above was closed just days ago. Most competent readers can and will figure out the reality of the situation by reading the article — low-level conflict escalating to full-scale conflict in 2022 — so I'm not sure why the exact terminology used is so important. JDiala (talk) 16:28, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fully agree about terminology non-inportance. Clearly, adepts of splitting the war into two parts are biased: then the agressor's actions would be more plausible (i.e. Putin's narrative about Ukraine's 'NATO short skirt' seduction of Russia - a la Poland in 1939 - in his 2024 interview), than just a continuous revanshist subjugation, planned as early as 2003, clearly marked with Tuzla island incident. 91.122.22.140 (talk) 12:14, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Russia's largest combined arms operation since the Soviet Union's Battle of Berlin in 1945"

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I've removed this claim as it was uncited. my first instinct was this was probably true, but on further analysis it probably isn't true:

  • Firstly, the Berlin operation was carried out by the USSR, not Russia.
  • Secondly, it's not clear what is meant by "largest" in this context. There's a number of things this could mean:
  • If we take number of troops involved, Operation Danube (the invasion of Czechoslovakia) was a combined-arms operation that involved more men in the initial invasion than Russia deployed against Ukraine (250k versus 190k) - a claim based on simple maths doesn't need a source but the maths doesn't support this claim.
  • If we are referring to the land-area involved, this is murkier still - Ukraine is a larger country obviously, but the Soviets occupied all of Czechoslovakia and the Russians invaded only part of Ukraine. That's going to need a source.
  • In terms of casualties taken or inflicted this is probably true but would simply be a restatement of what we've said in the first line of the article anyway: this is the biggest war since WW2.

FOARP (talk) 09:30, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bigger than the Yugoslavian war? Or is Yugoslavia considered a civil war? Nakonana (talk) 15:40, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Plenty of experts (e.g., McFaul and Person, Kofman cited above) have said it's the largest war since WW2 in Europe, and it's hard to think of any metric by which they would be wrong. Certainly estimates of casualties have long since exceeded those of all the Yugoslav wars put together. FOARP (talk) 18:04, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see, thanks, it looks like I overestimated the Yugoslavian wars. I thought there were more casualties, and more military conflict given the nato intervention. Nakonana (talk) 12:12, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't there also been invasion of Manchuria comparable to this in August 1945?213.230.87.231 (talk) 10:56, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of North Korea footnote in infobox

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Footnotes should be avoided in the infobox when possible to keep it concise. There's no longer a good reason to give special clarification to North Korea's status.

Belarus and the PRs have a stronger case to keep the footnotes imo, since they're more weird situations Placeholderer (talk) 17:17, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I could see some utility in a note saying that they have been involved since October 2023 (and thus clarifying that they weren't involved directly in the initial invasion) but I'm not bothered to change things back either. FOARP (talk) 18:06, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The footnote also says "involved in the war" on the Russian invasion of Ukraine article, this implies that North Korea was involved in the invasion of Ukraine, when that isn't true.
The footnote should say North Korea was involved in fighting in Kursk from October 2024 until February 2025 (or whenever it was). Otherwise it can be seen as misleading. TurboSuperA+(connect) 08:27, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest the following:
[North Korea][a].
  1. ^ On-and-off from October 2024, disguised in the uniform of the  Russian Armed Forces

91.122.22.140 (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"supported by", again

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I see that "supported by" has been added to the infobox again by @padfoot2008 after it was removed a week+ ago. Previous to "supported by" being added back in, Belarus was listed as a belligerent below North Korea. I'm not the person who removed it but I honestly don't believe there is a good reason to have a "supported by" sub-heading simply for Belarus.

Either Belarus is a belligerent, in which case it should be listed as a belligerent, or it isn't, in which case it should not be in the list at all. Personally I favour removing Belarus from the list completely, but having Belarus as a belligerent is still better than having it under "supported by", which simply drives endless argument. I'd therefore prefer to simply revert PadFoot2008's last edit rather than keep arguing this one.

I simply don't understand the arguments that argue that Belarus should be listed as a supporter because it is a belligerent. This simply seems contradictory to me. FOARP (talk) 14:05, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

compromise, but I think if we want to change that we need an RFC. Slatersteven (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The last RfC on Belarus was archived without closure, but that discussion was firmly about Belarus' status as co-belligerent. You probably don't need a new RfC, maybe just a formal closure of the archived one. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:16, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to boldly restore the version with Belarus listed as a belligerent, while acknowledging that there wasn't recent consensus on whether or not it should be kept in the infobox at all. If there be editors still supporting listing Belarus under "Supported by", show yourself! Placeholderer (talk) 19:23, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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