Talk:Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Cerebellum (talk · contribs) 12:17, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello! I will be reviewing this article. It could take up to a week. From an initial skim I think the biggest issue is the article's length. The article is 12,600 words long, but per WP:SIZERULE, articles should not typically exceed 9,000 words. While I am reviewing, could you take a look and try to shorten the article? --Cerebellum (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to mention that you can use the Prosesize tool to check the word count. --Cerebellum (talk) 12:19, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

@Dantheanimator: I think I will wait until the article is cut down to size before doing a full review. Do you think you can have it done in a week? A good starting point is the "Post-invasion analyses of Russian war plans ("taking Kyiv in three days")", you could delete the whole section since it is about the invasion not the prelude. --Cerebellum (talk) 12:09, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

@Cerebellum: thanks for taking up the review! :) Sorry I wasn't able to reply sooner: had to deal with some unexpected mishaps off-wiki but everything's alright now and I should be back to editing more consistently. About the article, thanks for comments and for the tool! I'll try to see how much I can trim off the article today and will see what can be done with the "Post-invasion" section content but there's a chance I might end up working on it tomorrow too. In any case, I'll almost definitely have all the article size concerns addressed before this coming Wednesday (December 13). That said, feel free to let me know if there's anything else I can do to improve the article alongside the trimming. Thanks again for everything and definitely ping me here if there's anything else I can do to help with the review! Best, Dan the Animator 22:06, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

@Dantheanimator: Sorry to hear that, I'm glad you are back! Please take your time, the article is very well written and I'm confident we can get it to pass. --Cerebellum (talk) 10:18, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Cerebellum: I've been trying to cut back on the size among other improvements to the article but unfortunately I won't be able to get it done today. Also, because the merger discussion I opened for the post-invasion content is surprisingly slow-going, I don't see the prose size reaching below 10k until the weekend probably. If it's alright with you, I think having a few more days would help a lot. Otherwise, feel free to start adding specific comments here regarding the Background and Initial tensions (March–April 2021) sections, which should be as good as I can make them on my own for now.

By the way, just to let you know, I'm planning on doing heavy editing on the 2022 Ukrainian coup d'état attempt subsection to make it a lot shorter and remove the infobox. While I'll try my best with doing additional trimming on top of that, chances are the article will stay somewhere around 8k-9k in prose size, so it'll still remain a fairly long article (which I think is necessary given the complexity of the subject). If there's any other tips you have for areas to focus on cutting back content from, definitely to let me know soon so I can get any necessary splitting discussions started. Thanks and appreciate all the feedback and support you've given so far! :)

Best, Dan the Animator 08:08, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Wonderful! I was going to recommend trimming the coup attempt section and merging it into the chronological part of the article, great to see you doing that on your own. I will start getting my full review together but it probably won't be done until Saturday, so no rush on your end. --Cerebellum (talk) 10:13, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Ok here we go! The article is very well written so there is not a lot to fix.

• Prose: Just need to take care of the length and a couple of minor comments below.
• References: Outstanding, you use high-quality sources and every paragraph has multiple citations. One could argue that Russian state media such as TASS is not reliable, but I think Western media can be unreliable as well and it is essential to present claims from both sides, which you do a good job of.
• Coverage: Yes, the article is extremely comprehensive.
• Neutral: Yes, the article is level-headed and balanced. Importantly, it presents the Russian view that the cause of the war is NATO expansion, without necessarily taking a side on whether that is correct or not. You let the reader decide for themselves.
• Stable: Yes.
• Images: I am not a fan of the panorama with the tanks, it looks like the same image repeated three times unless you look really close. But it is not a deal-breaker for me.

Comments

• The announcement followed a crackdown by Ukrainian government's on Viktor Medvedchuk "Crackdown" is vague, can you specify what exactly the government did to Medvedchuk?
  •  Done Added in more context/info about the government's specific actions.
• American officials to warn its European allies Should be "their European allies".
  •  Done Fixed.
• Budanov accused Russia of conspiring several protests I don't think conspiring is the right word here, I recommend "fomenting several protests".
  •  Done Used "fomenting".
• at any moment prior to 20 February Should say "after 20 February", right?
  • According to the ref cited, Sullivan claimed that the "attack could begin before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing on February 20" so "prior to" sounds correct. If it helps, I can reword it to be more clear.

Nope, you are correct! What you said reflects the source, I was wrong. --Cerebellum (talk) 11:36, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

• There is a peacock prose tag relating to the submarine Rostov-on-Don, I recommend revising to the cruise missile submarine Rostov-on-Don.
  •  Done Yeah, sorry for the tag. When I first read it, I couldn't figure what it was saying so I just left it for later. Thanks for the suggestion though, I put it in! :)
• Deliveries of lethal weapons from the US started the following month and included .50 BMG caliber ammunition, M141 Bunker Defeat Munition (BDM) and Javelin systems. I recommend removing this sentence, the same information is in the previous paragraph.
  •  Done removed sentence and moved a small part of the content plus the sources into the preceding paragraph.
• The US also intends to transfer Mil Mi-17 helicopters to Ukraine Needs an update, has the transfer taken place?
  •  Done updated
• Two Dutch F-35 fighter jets will also be deployed to Bulgaria. Needs an update, has the deployment taken place?
  •  Done updated

Just minor things as you can see! I'll place the article on hold for 7 days so you can resolve these issues and the length. --Cerebellum (talk) 22:21, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Cerebellum!!! :)

• Regarding the panorama, I'll try searching in commons to see if they have each of the tank photos separately or maybe some better photo from February 23.
• For prose size:

I'm still thinking of cutting down on the size of the coup attempt section and taking out it's infobox but after finding yesterday the article 2021 Ukrainian coup attempt allegations, I'm starting to think it might be better to start a merge discussion for the content to be moved into that article. What do you think? Looking back at the old discussion that put the coup attempt content into this article, it sounds like the consensus was that this article was the best place for it (the allegations article didn't exist at the time of the discussion tho so its hard to say if merging into that article would be opposed). The allegations article is also a bit of a mess and mostly consists of allegations/potential propaganda about the alleged coup in 2021. Personally, I can't figure what type of article would be able to combine the 2021 coup allegations and 2022 coup attempt info together given they're very distinct events. That said, the allegations article could use some more "non-allegation" content and definitely shares connections with the 2022 coup. About merging the content from the allegations article to this article though (given that article might fail WP:GNG as-is), even if the content were trimmed substantially, it would only make it more difficult to bring down the size of this article (currently, the substance of the 2021 coup allegations is already summed up in three semi-short sentences in this article). Another possibility is to create a new article about alleged Russian subversion in Ukraine in the leadup to the invasion but I feel like that's too vague of a topic and would be mostly just Russian and Ukrainian propoganda/allegations.

I'll also try to speed up the open merger discussion if possible and finish up cleaning up that part of the article sooner. I'm also planning on going over and potentially trimming from the Diplomatic negotiations section since it is on the longer side.

Let me know your thoughts on the above and if there's anything else I should work on and many thanks again for all the helpful suggestions! Best, Dan the Animator 05:33, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

To be honest, I think you need to be a bit more ruthless about cutting content without trying to find a home for everything in other articles. Otherwise you will tie yourself up in knots starting lengthy merge discussions. Here are a couple examples:

• According to James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe at NATO (2009–2013), "The level of military support" for anti-Russian guerrilla fighters "would make our efforts in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union look puny by comparison." You can delete this sentence because Stavridis is a retired official, what he says doesn't really matter, and it is substantially the same as what Austin said in the previous sentence.
  •  Done removed sentence
• Of course, Lenin did not create Ukraine. In 1918, he started a war against an independent Ukrainian state and then replaced it with a puppet state called the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. What Lenin really created was the Russian Federation, a state that received its constitution in 1918 and became part of the USSR four years later. In 1991, Yeltsin removed this entity created by Lenin from the USSR, thereby contributing to the collapse of the Union. Lenin was the creator of modern Russia, not Ukraine, and should be considered as such. This quote is really just repeating what was already said in the previous sentence, you can delete it.
  • I think parts of the quote are still valuable to keep, particularly since they're from Serhii Plokhy who's often cited in many news article on Putin's justifications for the invasion. I agree though parts of the content are repetitive/extraneous so I removed the blockquote altogether and reworded/restructured it to include additional content/information that adds useful info into the section.

I don't want to step on your toes but let me know if you would like me to suggest more things to remove. I would look particularly at the reactions section because we already have a separate article Reactions to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis, most of the content could be moved there and frankly, reactions are not as interesting as the actual events. Thank you for continuing to work with me! I'm sorry this review has dragged out so long! --Cerebellum (talk) 11:36, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

@Cerebellum: no need to apologize! It's been great working with you and having more time has made the review a lot easier to manage. I know it's been a while since my last message so as an update: I've been working on the article when I can the past week and got a number of stuff done (condensing significantly the coup content, removing a bunch of content from the reactions section, and trying to follow your above suggestions, in whole cutting back the prose size by over a 1,000 words). I thought I'd be able to finish bringing down the prose size of the article already but it's a lot tougher than I realized. With the review set to expire tomorrow though, I was hoping if possible, could the review be extended until this upcoming Tuesday midnight (December 26th), just after the holidays?

It would help tremendously to have the extra time although I understand if it isn't possible, especially with the holidays around the corner. In any case, particularly if an extension is not possible, any suggestions on specifics sentences or general parts of the article to try to further condense would help a lot (if an extension is possible though, don't worry too much about giving me specific suggestions or anything: I'll definitely spend time going through the article and trying my best to cut back on the excess content). I'm committed to successfully finishing this review and will edit as much as it takes to get this article passed. That said, an extension and/or any suggestions would be really, really appreciated so please let me know soon what works for you (also, if the extension date is too late/too soon, feel free to suggest another date... any additional time is better than no time). Best, Dan the Animator 04:46, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

We can keep the review open until the 26th, that's no problem. I went ahead and implemented a drastic solution – cutting the entire Reactions section. That gets the article into the acceptable range, but feel free to revert if you do not like it. --Cerebellum (talk) 11:14, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Cerebellum! About taking out the reactions section, I think it should be kept if possible at least to some extent (with as-short-as-possible content and a section hatnote linking to the separate article). The reactions to the military buildups were a major part of the prelude to the invasion and, while the article integrates some of the Western "reactions" to Russia's actions in the other sections, I think having at least some sort of section would be helpful to readers.

Personally, I didn't think the info for the Ukrainian/NATO reactions was all too useful but the content for Russia's reactions definitely feels like it should be mentioned here, especially the parts about Putin's thinking into the war and Russia's denial of the invasion. I'll revert the section removal for now while I try to cut back on excess/unnecessary info from other parts of the article but if I can't bring down the prose size, I agree with taking it out. Dan the Animator 17:51, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Ok, sounds good! --Cerebellum (talk) 19:45, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

@Cerebellum: Sorry for going into the next day (and for not messaging sooner) but I think I did everything I can do regarding the prose size on my own. I went through as much of the article as possible and condensed/rewrote where I could, which probably brought the word count down by about 100 or so. More importantly though, as per my comment above, I followed through with your advice and took out the entirety of the Reactions section. With everything, the readable prose is currently at around 10,239 words. I know WP:SIZERULE suggests trimming it lower but given the complexity of the topic and how well everything ties together, I think it should be fine for it to be on the larger size imo. That said, I'm also open to further trimming if you want, just give me specific suggestions and I'll work on them. Let me know what you think and if the article's ready to pass GA. Dan the

Animator 08:54, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Looks great, thank you for all your hard work on this article! I'm happy to pass. Congratulations on your first GA! --Cerebellum (talk) 11:06, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Cerebellum!!!! :) It was awesome working with you and I don't think I could've done it with anyone else! In case you're interested, I'm thinking of GA nominating the much shorter NAFO (group) article next (it would be a privilege to me to have you as the reviewer but no worries if you can't/don't want to review it). Thanks again for putting up with me through everything and hopefully I'll cya around! :D Cheers, Dan the Animator 23:12, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, before I forget, I haven't forgotten about the panorama image! I've been going through the licenses/instructions to figure out if its alright to upload a snippet of part of the panorama and will try to switch out the panorama with a better picture eventually (probably will also open a discussion about it at some point too). Dan the Animator 23:16, 27 December 2023 (UTC)