Talk:Torture in Ukraine

This approach may satisfy the needs of readers who are looking for general info, while quickly redirecting those interested in the current events to the War crimes... article. Any thoughts? -- K.e.coffman (talk) 04:04, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree  A good solution, thanks. While I would oppose deleting an article over a content dispute, neither the past nor current state constitutes a complete article on the subject. It can be spun off again by splitting from those other WP ones if and when they mature. —Michael Z. 18:14, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, I also agree. This is a good solution. - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:09, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support redirect/merge I think K.e. makes some good points regarding this article, and given that torture as a concept is invariably also a matter of human rights, this would make the most sense, especially given the size of the current article and most of the points made by K.e.
  No comment on the possible changes to the Human rights in Ukraine article mentioned by others here. GabberFlasted (talk) 19:02, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An even simpler approach is to turn this page into a disambiguation page, as in:

This page may refer to:

• Human rights in Ukraine#Torture and conditions in detention
• War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

--K.e.coffman (talk) 04:22, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also Humanitarian_situation_during_the_war_in_Donbas#War_crimes to cover the period between 2014 and 2022. Alaexis_¿question? 11:50, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just call for a speedy end to this timesink of a travesty. Elinruby (talk) 09:48, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how merging the contents of this article with another "ends" any of the controversy. This is a proposal to move, not remove. Masebrock (talk) 16:37, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like a reasonable approach to me. BogLogs (talk) 11:15, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you coming. I am currently speechless. Elinruby (talk) 09:50, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree. One issue here is content forking. Most of the torture was happening during the war(s) (i.e.
  War in Donbas (2014–2022), etc.) and on the territories not controlled by the Ukrainian government. Some of them are war crimes and therefore were described on other pages. On the other hand, a page "Torture in Ukraine" (not by Ukraine) must include everything at the internationally recognized Ukrainian territory, i.e. such materials do belong to such page. Another issue is that sections "Before Euromaidan" and "Torture during the 2014 Russian invasion" are written essentially as an anti-Ukrainian "attack page", and in general, this page is poorly written. Overall, I feel that suggestion K.e.coffman to merge and redirect was reasonable. My very best wishes (talk
  )
• Agree with User:K.e.coffman. This never happens, but I do. Adoring nanny (talk) 23:46, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. There is not a lot of content on the pre-2014 period and I don't think that mixing pre-war 'civilian' torture and wartime torture makes sense. One more desambig alternative we should have is Humanitarian_situation_during_the_war_in_Donbas#War_crimes which covers the period between 2014 and 2022. Alaexis_¿question? 09:55, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Having seen u:Masebrock's !vote, I wanted to clarify that the information from this article which is not present in the main articles should be incorporated there. Alaexis_¿question? 14:47, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree. This is a good idea, as long as it doesn't result in the loss of notable content and reliable sources of this article. If they are not redundant, the pre-2022 contents of this article should be merged with that section Human rights in Ukraine#Torture and conditions in detention, which is indeed quite poor and in need of more materials.Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:52, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Disgaree. User K.e.coffman has indicated on the talk page of Human Rights in Ukraine that he does NOT intend to merge the content from this page to the Human rights in Ukraine page as he suggested in this proposal, but instead intends to blank the section of torture, removing all sources from organizations such as the New York Times, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations. His rationale is that the current sources "focus on specific periods, stages of the conflict, or individual incidents" instead of providing a general overview. I disagree with his assumption that human rights pages must only speak in generalities, and I also disagree on the merits that the provided sources only speak in narrow case-specific language. And I find the argument that 2016 is too historical to be included a human rights page highly questionable at best. But anyway, this is not a proposal to merge. K.e.coffman is proposing to delete. All well sourced material describing torture by the government of Ukraine (a notable, verifiable topic) will be scrubbed from Wikipedia. Masebrock (talk) 06:03, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure where the discussion should take place. I've just added my remarks to Talk:Human rights in Ukraine#Recent edits. In my view, the decision to redirect the name of the article to Human rights in Ukraine#Torture and conditions in detention, which I welcome in principle, is purely editorial, meaning that it doesn't affect in any way the admittedly very controversial question of what content and sources should be reported in that section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:59, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, let's continue the discussion about the contents of the section in question at Talk:Human rights in Ukraine#Recent edits. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unclear on the process for this. It seems like most people here agree. Does that mean we just make the redirect and do the merge? Do we need an AfD? Something else? Adoring nanny (talk) 15:33, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Adoring nanny: I redirected the article to the section Human_rights_in_Ukraine#Torture_and_conditions_in_detention. --K.e.coffman (talk) 17:52, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yanukovych was a Russian puppet. It had not occurred to me that a good-faith editor familiar with the history would dispute this, but ok... apparently this can be done. I took issue at ANI with the contemptuous removal of this rather factual statement; Yanukovych disputed his removal after fleeing to Moscow, for heaven's sake. Since I substantiated the material with three rather good references, I think the statement should be restored, as it is important context to some of the early instances of torture.

I don't usually revert at all let alone operate in 1RR environments, so I am uncertain of the proper way to proceed. Since I just got home after some rather harrowing travel, for tonight I plan to limit myself here to this post and go edit grammar in medieval Sri Lanka articles or something. Will check in tomorrow. Thank you for any thoughts Elinruby (talk) 03:30, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Pre-2014 Ukraine was a client state of Russia" is the kind of highly contentious claim that is sort of the opposite of "WP:SKY_IS_BLUE", but if you have reliable sources feel free to add it back in. Masebrock (talk) 03:39, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Masebrock: You're a funny guy. You were also joking when you said that that the statement must be untrue because three Wikipedia pages didn't say so, right? Right? The sources for the statement are a Guardian think piece, a Barack Obama State of the Union address, and a Merriam Webster entry, all of which explicitly say exactly that. All jokes aside, I am going to await further input and go work on something uncontroversial for tonight, too tired and frazzled to put up with editors who seem to think that I need their permission. Elinruby (talk) 03:50, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure which edit this refers to.

I did tag a statement that Ukraine was a client state, implying from the surrounding text that it meant by 2010, with little or no qualification or explanation. Certainly Ukraine was no Belarus, and Yanukovych was playing the resisting pressure game until the reversal on the EU AA. After that point he lost support of the West and most of his population, and the bare statement makes more sense. —Michael Z. 03:49, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mzajak: see the "Section -- before Euromaidan" section above. It is entirely possible that I may have unartfully appeared to suggest something -- the past few days I have been editing between interruptions while traveling. The point I was trying to make is that Zelenskyy should not be tasked with the sins of Yanukovych etc., and this thought underlay my attempt to AfD the article. I have seen enough of your work to convince me that you know more about this than I do and I will gladly review your thoughts on this tomorrow. My current belief is that this is an important point of context. Elinruby (talk) 04:03, 30 November 2022 (UTC) fixing the ping: @Mzajac:[reply]

Well I didn’t delete it. I thought it needed improvement based on sources, so I tagged it. —Michael Z. 06:15, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yanukovych is aligned with Russia. Viktor Yushchenko was not. So the previous sttement was too broad. There is probably a different-but-similar statement we can make. But I'm not sure exactly what it is. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:45, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yanukovych was a wannabe authoritarian dependent on Russia, but trying to retain as much power and autonomy as he could. Like Lukashenka in some ways. Although he did implement the demands of Medvedev’s 2009 ultimatum. But the major turning point to his personal full dependence only came in late November 2013, when he lost the support of the majority of Ukrainians and other states, and I don’t believe Ukraine ever became what can be termed a “client state” (although I am willing to consider what that means and what reliable sources say).  —Michael Z. 17:27, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am not adamant about a particular wording. I do agree that "client state" applies more to today's Belarus than to the aspects of Ukraine that I am pointing at, yet the term has also been applied to Syria, so I don't think it implies de jure administrative power necessarily. It is probably a

term of art

in international law. Maybe we can start by looking at that definition.

I do think that some statement(s) should be made about how independent from Russia Ukraine might have been prior to the Revolution of Dignity. There is the matter of Russian special forces essentially running areas of the Donbas in the frozen war, and the question of whether and when Crimea could be considered Ukraine for purposes of this article. It is also worth noting that essentially all mass media in the country were owned by Russian oligarchs. Their level of support for Putin may have varied, unsure. That is a murky topic and I don't think I did it justice when I worked on Mass media in Ukraine and related information war articles. At least one oligarch was from eastern Ukraine and possibly funded a volunteer brigade, on the other hand, as I recall.

I came out of my recent travels with a sprained knee and bronchitis, and the weather is terrible, so I am essentially calling in sick on this thread at the moment and going back to bed. It is getting some thoughtful and intelligent responses so let's let the discussion play out a bit.Elinruby (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than analyzing Ukraine’s characteristic vis-à-vis client statehood, let’s first see what other articles say. “Ukraine” does not define the subject as a client state or use the term. “Client state” currently lists Ukraine, along with Germany and the UK, as a client state of the USA, relying on some very dubious-looking sources (Ha! I think I’ll disregard that article for now). A quick search didn’t find any other articles that call Ukraine a client state, but I didn’t try very hard.

Next we can examine what reliable sources say. How about you finding a couple of sources that support the statement, and perhaps describe when Ukraine could be considered a Russian client state, and then we’re done.

Of course Crimea is considered Ukraine.

My understanding is that Ukrainian mass media has been largely owned by oligarchs but that created a free plurality of media sources, not too different from in the West. And unlike Russia, where the media, including that owned by oligarchs, has been increasingly beholden to the state since 1999. I could probably find a source if it’s needed.

Hope you get better soon.  —Michael Z. 20:31, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The sources I provided in the ANI thread were: a Guardian think piece, Barack Obama in a State of the Union speech, and Merriam Webster. I will fish them out and bring them over here shortly. I am not insistent that we use that exact wording, as I said, but I am pretty sure Ukraine wasn't exactly fully independent at the time either. I wasn't accusing you of removing the text; I haven't looked to see who it was, but odds are that it was the person who had so much fun saying that it was removed in their dissertation on my supposedly disgraceful editing. I'm not even mad about it at this point, but I do think something along those lines needs to be considered in the "in Ukraine" articles. Mass media: murky subject as I said, but some of the information war materials I've looked at thought the ownership was important. I tried to update the en.wikipedia articles, but there are a lot of shell companies and ambiguous mergers/partnerships involved. We don't need to explicitly get into all that here, but it is a factor. I do not think the level of press freedom is comparable to North America's. If you have good sources about this at your fingertips, I could use them at my talk page, since talking about this here has reminded me of Mass media in Ukraine, and the fact that it most likely still needs work. If you don't have them at your fingertips, don't worry about it; I can look when I come back to this. Oh and btw I didn't think much of client state either. Elinruby (talk) 22:13, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Re sources: others are probably available, but let's start with what I said about this at the ANI thread: Ukraine was a client state^[1] of Russia under Viktor Yanukovych, "a profoundly corrupt politician...seen as a proxy for Kremlin interests, and generally loyal to the idea of post-Soviet Ukraine as a Russian client state...^[2] Also, some guy named Barack Obama reached this conclusion, and he had some pretty good information sources available to him.^[3]. I am open to suggestions/discussion. Elinruby (talk) 00:18, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The [1] reference ought to be to the original article,[9] because although the dictionary is an authority on the meaning of words, it is only giving an example quotation to illustrate that and not saying Ukraine is a client state. Unfortunately the article is by a business reporter, so not really a reliable source on whether this is an accurate categorization. A lot of terms have meanings that can be used casually or informally, but I’d like to see experts in international relations or something to support this.

The Guardian article, “Although seen as a proxy for Kremlin interests, and generally loyal to the idea of post-Soviet Ukraine as a Russian client state, he threw his weight behind an association agreement with the EU,” doesn’t actually say Ukraine was a client state, and the sentence is about how Y. might have accepted that but actually resisted it. (Often better not to go by titles and subtitles, because the editors write them.) It is consistent but not indicative with the idea that if Ukraine was a client state it was not until November 2013.

The subject in RFE/RL is about how what Obama said seemed wrong, isn’t it? With several experts quoted saying so.  —Michael Z. 00:53, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it’s the wrong term to use. Better to describe specifically what is meant.  —Michael Z. 01:05, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Brainstorming a couple of options, with indisputably true statements:

• A

  In 2010, before the 2013–14 Euromaidan demonstrations and Revolution of Dignity, Amnesty International said . . .

• B

  In 2010, during the Russia-backed Presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, Amnesty International said . . .

  Adoring nanny (talk) 04:06, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

mmmyeah,those are some good points. My initial reactions however are: 1) we already quote Amnesty International much too much in this article and I would prefer to diversify the sourcing a bit. Also, 2) while they can probably be described as experts in torture/civil rights, does that extend to political systems and international relations? 3) Attribution probably is a good idea, mind you; I'd prefer to attribute to someone else though. 4) Yes, the RFE says that the term seemed surprising, yet this presumes that RFE knows something Obama didn't, whereas the the converse was likely true. Whatever one may think of Obama, he was a careful man making an official statement on behalf of a country. 5) The author of the Guardian piece is a journalist who was posted to Moscow, and arguably could be considered an expert. Yes, his statement is a lot more nuanced than mine, but mine was written in circumstances so harried that I originally wrote that Russia was a Russian client state, I think it's always been a given that the BOLD would be discussed as we are here, and rewritten. 7) I don't insist on "client state", although I don't think it's unreasonable, and I think we should say *something* of the kind. I will click around a bit tomorrow and ping you two with something reworked a bit. Elinruby (talk) 06:02, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you doubling down on this? Is there not a single good source?

The record of “journalists posted to Moscow” on Ukraine is crap. Remember Pulitzer winner Walter Duranty? You can’t talk to Ukrainians or even see Ukraine from Moscow.

In your own source an anonymous Obama staffer gives a nonsense explanation and experts say he misspoke.  —Michael Z. 17:13, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

is there not a legitimate question as to Russia's influence over Ukraine in the period? I think you are off in the weeds a bit. A lot of your objections to these specific sources are reasonable. I think I can find sources for this or some other wording, and the article would be better for the objection. My point with the journalist posted to Moscow was that this might make him an expert on Russia, but ok, this not the same as on the ground in Ukraine. But I suspect that other editors would object to a Ukrainian source. Which leaves what, the World Bank? I am pretty sure I can source some statement all my these lines, and I am not trying to include it unsourced. I've been quiet because I've been on pain meds and asleep, not because it isn't possible to find a source for this. Elinruby (talk) 17:38, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there is a question. The answer is not “client state” with iffy references. Find an expert that actually says it. Journalism might not be the right place. Look for academic articles or popular-academic books on Google Books or Scholar.

Anyway, I think the answer is probably not “client state” at all. Perhaps that is not a well defined academic term (I don’t really know). My dictionary says “a nation that is dependent on another, more powerful nation,” which is inherently vague, and light years from exactly black-and-white in this age of globalization and multiple different interdependencies.

IMO Putin never succeeded to the degree that you can call Ukraine an unqualified “client state.” The political situation was complex and changing. Ukrainians revolted when it looked like Yanukovych was going to turn their country into a client state and headed it off.

Until late November 2013 Ukraine was actively planning European integration. Two days later, the nation was actively revolting against a government that tried to scupper the effort. In February the “patron” state was grasping at its influence so desperately that it invaded. In March 2014 Ukraine signed the Association Agreement. To me this was never a client state.  —Michael Z. 17:55, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is way too much time spent on a contested term. In the article, explain what you actually mean, or just use terminology no one disagrees with.

I’m taking a break from this thread unless something new appears.  —Michael Z. 17:59, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since this article is on "Torture in Ukraine", this conversation would be more in-topic at

WP:SYNTH. So far I haven't been able to find an RS like that, but I don't doubt that it would be in-topic in this article and that we could publish (with attribution) the corresponding content. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:50, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Moot at this point, but I tend to agree with that. Yanukovich could reasonably be described as a Russian client individual. One could even make a case that he would have preferred that Ukraine become a Russian client state. But he was never the state, and it did not. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:31, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]