# Talk:Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Under: 'Initial Tensions (March-April 2021)'- First Russian Military Buildup - The third paragraph down
The link for Defender Europe links to an article about the Reorganization plan of United States Army, rather than the Defender-Europe 21 NATO exercise. Is this correct and/or or can someone fix this? 2601:602:867E:DCA0:6CE8:E3C5:A353:4B0D (talk) 04:51, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Fixed the link, thanks for the head's up! :)  Dan the Animator 20:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

@RuASG, [1] please don't fill article with official Russian statements. This is violation of WP:SOAPBOX. See WP:RS for how articles should be written - Prefer secondary sources – Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 14:47, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

As this is a good article and on a sensitive topic, I wanted to raise this here for comments before making any changes. This part: "In mid-January, six Russian troop carrier landing ships (Olenegorsky Gornyak, Georgiy Pobedonosets, Pyotr Morgunov, Korolyov, Minsk, and Kaliningrad), mostly of the Ropucha class, were redirected from their home ports to the Port of Tartus. The Turkish government of Recep Erdoğan prevented them, together with the Marshal Ustinov and the Varyag, from transiting the Bosporus by the Montreux Convention." is inaccurate. The six Russian transports did transit the Bosporus and entered the Black Sea, on 8 and 9 February before the invasion began, and as stated later in the article. The closure of the straits came several weeks later, after the invasion had begun. Russia had planned the transit of four vessels after the invasion had begun, on 27-28 February. These were described as "two destroyers, a frigate and an intelligence vessel" ([2]), and not the two cruisers Marshal Ustinov and Varyag, the source noting that the closure of the straits "likely means that two of Russia’s Slava-class cruisers currently operating in the Mediterranean couldn’t enter the Black Sea." without any statement that they ever intended to ([3]).
With this in mind, I suggest changing it to read "In mid-January, six Russian troop carrier landing ships (Olenegorsky Gornyak, Georgiy Pobedonosets, Pyotr Morgunov, Korolyov, Minsk, and Kaliningrad), mostly of the Ropucha class, were redirected from their home ports to the Port of Tartus, and from there entered the Black Sea on 8 and 9 February."  The closure of the straits detail and the four ships are already mentioned in the Russian invasion of Ukraine article as happening several days after the invasion began and thus not part of the prelude. As it stands the article implies the closure came several weeks before the invasion. Spokoyni (talk) 11:18, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I see that you already have made this edits.  Like Lova Falk (talk) 09:43, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Calling this 2020's event a "prelude" to the invasion of Ukraine is passively giving legitimacy to earlier Russian agression by implying that the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea, Ukraine, Donbas, Ukraine, and Luhansk, Ukraine were not "real" invasions and that the only Russian invasion of Ukraine was the one that started in 2022. Wikipedia has no reason to give any recognition of Russia's illegal territorial claims to Crimea, Donbas, and Luhansk - even most Russian puppet states don't consider Crimea, Luhansk, and Donbas to be part of Russia! So lets stop pretending this invasion started in 2022, it started in 2014. Here is a metaphor for the situation: suppose Japan annexed all of Hawaii (Crimea) in 1941, and the US retreated. Later that year Japan invades Alaska (Donbas and Luhansk) and the US Army tries to fight them off. Then Japan starts bombing DC in 1949. Would it be acceptable to describe Japanese preparations for the bombing of DC and Seattle in 1948-1949 as "the prelude to the Japanese invasion of America"? I don't think many Americans here would agree with that. To be fair though, Ukraine's claims to Crimea are much better than US claims to Hawaii given the history of US presence in Hawaii, but this is just for an analogy. How about a title something like "buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine's border" or something to that effect. Whatever we go with, we CANNOT passively imply that Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea, Donbas, and Luhansk was not a "real" invasion, because it was an invasion, full stop.--CitationAuditor (talk) 22:54, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

I was pinged here by CitationAuditor and agree that the title should be changed for accuracy. Our articles Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation already recognise - rightfully based on the consensus of WP:RSes - that Russia began its invasion in 2014, e.g.:
"In February and March 2014, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine, and then annexed it." (from Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation)
"In April 2014, Russian-backed militants seized towns and cities in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and proclaimed the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) as independent states, starting the Donbas war. Russia covertly supported the separatists with its own troops, tanks and artillery, preventing Ukraine from fully retaking the territory. The International Criminal Court judged that the war was both a national and international armed conflict involving Russia, and the European Court of Human Rights judged that Russia controlled the DPR and LPR from 2014 onward." (From Russo-Ukrainian War)
(section header) "Russian invasion in Crimea and Donbas" "On 27 February 2014, Russian soldiers with no insignia began to invade the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and fully controlled the peninsula by late March." (From Russian invasion of Ukraine)
The title "Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine" is therefore misleading as it logically refers to the prelude to the 2014 invasion, not the 2022 one. In fact, the article itself already recognises this ambiguity and includes a hatnote: "Not to be confused with Euromaidan, the prelude to the initial phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War from 2013–2014." However, the phrasing "initial phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War from 2013-2014" is rather convoluted and seems to go out of its way to avoid calling this a Russian invasion.
For this page, I suggest the title "Prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine". I do think this is an issue created by the title of Russian invasion of Ukraine itself, which propagates to all articles containing this phrase in their title. However, Russian invasion of Ukraine has been through numerous RMs, and I see the most recent successful one that led to "(2022-present)" being removed from that article's title was closed on the basis of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (i.e. the reasoning that even though there are previous Russian invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and earlier, the 2022 one is the primary topic of this term, in the same way that Invasion of Poland being about WWII doesn't negate the many previous invasions of Poland). Therefore, although I would support relooking the title of Russian invasion of Ukraine as well, this may not be feasible within current Wikipedia title policy.
Even if Russian invasion of Ukraine stays where it is, I think it is fine to add "2022" to this article's title for two reasons:
This article has a chronologically defined scope because it is about the prelude to the invasion. Therefore, it's valid and important to clarify in the title which period of time the article is about. Since the 2014 invasion never ended but turned into the 2022 invasion, "Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine" logically means the prelude to the entire invasion, i.e. the time leading up to 2014.
Just because the parent article for the 2022 invasion is at Russian invasion of Ukraine, I don't think that means that every article referring to the 2022 invasion needs to follow that phrasing exactly; we can change the titles of specific articles based on what's best for that article, such as here where following the parent article's phrasing creates an accuracy issue.
I'd be happy to hear more editors' thoughts. Helpful Cat🐈(talk) 00:32, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
"Prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine" sounds like a great title to me. I endorse it.--CitationAuditor (talk) 01:32, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
@CitationAuditor and Helpful Cat: the article title is based on the parent article: Russian invasion of Ukraine. Any changes to this article title should come from a title change to that article. Feel free to start a WP:RM there with the reasons y'all listed above and let me know if there's comments/questions. Thanks thanks :) Dan the Animator 09:17, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
Also would highly recommend reviewing the past RMs on that article. They address much of the points raised above I think. Dan the Animator 09:25, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
Did you even bother to read Helpful Cat's comment that Just because the parent article for the 2022 invasion is at Russian invasion of Ukraine, I don't think that means that every article referring to the 2022 invasion needs to follow that phrasing exactly; we can change the titles of specific articles based on what's best for that article, such as here where following the parent article's phrasing creates an accuracy issue? We can rename this article without having to rename the main one first. Furthermore we have to take into account that the main article getting more visbility increases the risk of Russian trolls brigading it to push for a title that downplays their original invasion. It is not acceptable that Wikipedia constantly downplays and ignores the original 2014 invasion to the point of always going out of the way to avoid using the word invasion (Wikipedia tends to use other wording like "intervention in Crimea" or "Russian troops entered Crimea". The fact that there are a lot more casualties in the 2022 invasion and mode media attention than the 2014 invasion doesn't make the 2014 invasion any less of an invasion - if Ukraine decided to fight to exercise their rightful sovereignty in Crimea the very first day of the invasion in 2014, casualties would have been higher for Ukraine, there would be more media attention, and vise-versa, if Ukraine retreated in 2022 instead of fighting there would be a lot less casualties - which again, wouldn't mean that Russia was not doing a "real enough" invasion. Point being, we should define our use of the term "invasion" based on how the invader (Russia) behaves, NOT on how much resources the invade-e puts into fighting back. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 - they did not "enter" or "intervene in" - they invaded, and saying anything less, or simply pretending that it was such a small no-big-deal thing in comparison to the 2022 expansion of the invasion is giving in to Russian propaganda that tries to get people to pretend that Crimea, Donbas, and Luhansk are not Ukraine and therefore stealing them was not a true invasion.--CitationAuditor (talk) 12:15, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
Furthermore, it is all the more important to clarify that this is about the prelude to the 2022 expanded invasion. The use of the word "prelude" for 2021-2022 events here implies that Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine at all yet, which in turn implies that Wikipedia considers Russia's theft of Crimea to be legit - when it is an objective FACT that Russia had already invaded and already was invading Ukraine. So it is all the more important here, even more than the main article itself, that we go with Helpful Cat's proposed title to include the word 2022.--CitationAuditor (talk) 12:40, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
@CitationAuditor: I'm not disagreeing with your reasoning about the events of 2014-2015 being an invasion (actually have had opinions about this long before 2022) but my opinions don't matter here right. I think Helpful Cat acknowledged this a bit in their reply but the titling of articles, especially for contentious topics, is determined by Wiki policies and such. Also not sure if you've read them but in case they help, I'd recommend checking WP:RGW and WP:VNT which might help with future discussions.
About the the title of this article:
WP:CONSISTENT: titles should be consistent among articles covering similar topics (e.g. this and other articles about the Russian invasion of Ukraine)
WP:CONSUB: Titles of subtopics should be consistent with the names of topics associated with them. Where a title has been determined to be the common name of a term, then subtopics of that topic should generally follow the same common name determination. (e.g. the common name for the post-2022 Russian invasion as (currently) determined by the too-many discussions at Talk:Russian invasion of Ukraine is Russian invasion of Ukraine, thus that is the common name used in the subtopic articles, like here).
About why "2022" isn't in the title (and not that I agree with the reasoning, I don't really) but the reasoning is partially at this RM and others linked there.
With other "Prelude to" articles, the standard construction is to use the name of the parent article and append "Prelude to the" beginning of it (e.g. Prelude to the Iraq War, Prelude to the Russo-Georgian War, Prelude to the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), etc.)
Personally, my main issue with the title of Russian invasion of Ukraine is that it doesn't distinguish with the other Russian invasions of Ukraine but, as explained above, this is an issue that should be handled at the parent article. Posting on Russian invasion of Ukraine's talkpage too would more likely get more feedback since that has more pagewatchers than this talkpage. And broad feedback consensus/discussion is a must for high-profile contentious topic article titles, like this one.
Any case hope the above is a good explanation and feel free to let me know your comments/questions/etc. Dan the Animator 19:49, 28 June 2025 (UTC)