Talk:List of invasions and occupations of Ukraine

Missing items

To be added:

• Battle of Konotop, April 1659
• Sack of Baturyn, November 1708
• Liquidation of the Zaporozhian Sich, May 1775
• May 1920 Soviet counteroffensive by the Southwestern Front (RSFSR)/Southern Front
• Soviet invasion of Poland, September 1939, in eastern Galicia
• Occupation of Strilkove, Kherson oblast, March 15 2014
• The major mechanized operations by several battalion tactical groups of the Russian Armed Forces between July 2014 to February 2015, especially the Battle of Ilovaisk, 2014 Russian cross-border shelling of Ukraine, and Battle of Debaltseve, can be conceived as a distinct invasion, in contrast to the more covert infiltration by special forces and mercenaries in April 2014.

 —Michael Z. 17:56, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

@Mzajac: Thanks for this, and sorry for taking so long to look into adding these. A major concern I had putting this list together was avoiding any original research as to what counts as an invasion and as to what counts as to Ukraine. I've added Konotop, finding that Subtelny calls that an invasion, but I can't find similar cites for Baturyn or the liquidation of the Zaporizhian Sich, other than this one paper for Baturyn that uses the word in passing. Subtelny calls both simply attacks. I'm off to bed right now, and hope to look further at the rest of your list tomorrow, but wanted to at least address the three items that predate the 1918 invasion. Do you have any sources available referring to Baturyn and the liquidation as invasions? It's certainly a reasonable characterization, but I'd just like to make sure we're not stating anything that other tertiary sources wouldn't be comfortable stating. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 08:02, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Okay, got to the more recent ones too. Composite diff. To summarize:

• Konotop  Added
• Baturyn ? See above
• Liquidation ? See above
• Southwestern Front ? It seems this is an extension of the 1919 invasion? Might be worth mentioning in that entry, though. Or am I misunderstanding?
• Soviet invasion of Poland  Added
• Strilkove  Mentioned in Crimea entry
• Ilovaisk and Debaltseve  Mentioned in Donbas entry
• Cross-border shelling  Object to adding, as a cross-border shelling is by definition not an invasion.

-- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 00:06, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this on.

Why do we need reliable sources for each of these names? WP:DISAMBIG tells us “disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead.” Certainly every foreign military incursion fits the dictionary definition of invasion, and a reader could search for it by that name. Most of the subjects listed are not formal names or titles, but descriptive phrases that have many synonyms. —Michael Z. 14:10, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

@Mzajac: For the ones at issue it's not about what the titles say, but about whether reliable sources call them invasions. I disagree that Certainly every foreign military incursion fits the dictionary definition of invasion. Some incursions are more likely to be called just that, incursions, or to be called raids. Was the Killing of Osama bin Laden a U.S. invasion of Pakistan? Was Operation Entebbe an Israeli invasion of Uganda? My view is that there's a high risk of OR here, and we shouldn't be in the business of deciding what an invasion is. After all, I'm not sure I'd personally call the Central Powers intervention an invasion, but there's a reliable source calling it that, so I've included it. WP:SAL says that It is generally presumed that obviously appropriate material, such as the inclusion of Apple in the List of fruits, does not require an inline citation, and thus by extension other material does need citations. The citations for the entries containing the word "invasion" and for the Hungaro-Ukrainian War probably aren't necessary—I only included them to forestall disputes given the divisive nature of this content area—but I think citations are needed for all other entries on the list and for the four at issue above. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 22:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

My dictionary literally defines incursion as “invasion or attack, especially a sudden or brief one.” Perhaps I’ll start a separate Invasion of Ukraine (disambiguation) with a comprehensive list of articles that a reader might search for. —Michael Z. 14:20, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

@Mzajac: I originally wrote this as a DAB-like set index article, and then turned it into a list when someone pointed out to me that not all the entries were referred to as "Invasion of Ukraine" with any frequency, since a set index article needs to disambiguate by what things are called, not by how they could be described. The same is true of a DAB page, and so you creating a DAB to list things like the Sack of Baturyn, which is never referred to as the "1708 Russian invasion of Ukraine" or anything like that, would fail MOS:DABNOENTRY: Do not include entries for topics that are not ambiguous (according to the linked article) with the title.

As to inclusion in this list, dictionaries speak in incredibly broad terms. A list's inclusion criteria, though, need to be based on reliable sources, outside of those common-sense cases like apple on list of fruits. WP:LISTCRITERIA says

Selection criteria (also known as inclusion criteria or membership criteria) should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), it is especially important that inclusion be based on reliable sources given with inline citations for each item.

Well, this definitely is a case where membership criteria are likely to be disputed, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. And like I said, I think the common-sense clause would only apply here to something with "invasion" or "occupation" in the name. If it's such a straightforward application of a dictionary definition, then there should be reliable sources calling Baturyn and the other events invasions. Maybe there are such sources! I really don't know. I've checked Subtelny and Magosci (1996 ed., latest available on the Internet Archive) and neither seem to characterize these events that way, but maybe other historians do. That's why I'm asking you if you have any reliable sources at hand characterizing any of the four events in question as invasions or occupations. If you do, then I certainly don't object to your adding them to the list. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 18:14, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I’m going to invoke WP:common sense here. When a hostile foreign military enters Ukraine and conducts a military action, like the sack of a capital, that is an invasion. Let’s set the inclusion criteria to “instances of foreign military actions against Ukraine in Ukrainian territory,” and not “list of things literally called ‘invasion of Ukraine’ in reliable sources and absolutely nothing else.” If it helps, we can rename this List of foreign military invasions, conquests, captures, seizures, annexations, takeovers, overruns, attacks, offensives, raids, assaults, onslaughts, forays, sorties and sacks in Ukraine, but maybe it’s not necessary to be so literal. I think it makes sense to put all of those things in one list with a simple title, and not start multiple POV forks over the use and meaning of the word invasion. If you still object, we can call an RFC and get a few more opinions. —Michael Z. 23:02, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

@Mzajac: Lists' memberships need to be defined by reliable sources. There's no way around that. Common sense only applies when something actually is common sense. Referring to every foreign incursion into Ukraine as an invasion is not common sense, no more than it would be, as I said earlier, to call the bin Laden raid a U.S. invasion of Pakistan or to call Entebbe an Israeli invasion of Uganda. Meanwhile if you want this list to cover something broader than just invasions and occupations, we already have that: List of wars involving Ukraine; a List of battles fought in Ukraine would also be reasonable. If you would like to start an RfC, or to request a move to a broader title, you're of course welcome to, but I would oppose either. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 23:28, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

"Russian invasion of Ukraine" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Russian invasion of Ukraine and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 25#Russian invasion of Ukraine until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hentheden (talk) 22:19, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Missing items

At 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine we are missing Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Russian occupation of Kharkiv Oblast and Russian occupation of Sumy Oblast. Should we make some leading article 2022 Russian occupation of Ukrainian Oblasts? A09090091 (talk) 13:32, 19 July 2022 (UTC)