Talk:Battle of Kherson

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Controversy section
Hey. Since you added the controversy template to the article, do you have any immediate issues/see non-neutral issues with the section? I'm asking because after my copy/edit request out right now for the article, I was hoping to GAN it. Any thoughts would be useful. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 03:12, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Generally, such controversy sections should be intertwined with the article rather than separated out. Good luck on the GAN. Curbon7 (talk) 18:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Natural and logical sectioning and organization
This way the timeline is subdivided, with each day as its own sub-subsection, isn't great. It doesn't make for a logical experience when looking at the table of contents. It might be possible to organize it by "phases" of the battle instead, like how battle of Avdiivka (2022–present) does it. HappyWith (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you have any suggestions? Maybe 24-28 Feb is around Kherson and then 1-2 March is in Kherson? But then again, 24 Feb had the airport strike plus 24-26 Feb involved the battles at the bridge, which is also in Kherson. I know what you mean that it isn't ideal, but I'm honestly not sure how else to organize it besides the timeline, since fighting took place around Kherson and in Kherson just about every day. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:48, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I see your point. I might try to do some research to find retrospectives on the battle that might help us with analyzing and organizing the article in a logical structure. HappyWith (talk) 21:55, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey, I'm on a self-imposed 0RR restriction, but I think at least one reference (the NYT reference named under "falls" should probably be added next to the Russian victory in the infobox. Some of the battles, even when it is clear who the victor is also have a reference next to the "X victory" in the infobox, i.e. Battle of Kyiv (2022). Also, since there is a common mistake that Ukraine won the "Battle of Kherson" (due to some sources stating the "Battle of Kherson" was the event in November), the source should probably remain in the infobox at least for the time being. Thoughts? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:29, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's necessary - there's a hatnote at the top of the article saying this isn't the same thing as the November event, and there's sourced text that say it was a Russian victory easily findable in the lead and article body. Per MOS:INFOBOXREF, "References are acceptable in some cases, but generally not needed in infoboxes if the content is repeated (and cited) elsewhere or if the information is obvious". HappyWith (talk) 22:32, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I've reorganized it along the lines of the way this article does. Let me know if you have suggestions or criticism, I can adjust it. HappyWith (talk) 23:00, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Unit flags
I think a nice touch to the article would be to add some unit flags in the infobox like it was done in the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive page. Alexis Coutinho (talk) 22:03, 5 December 2023 (UTC)


 * MOS:INFOBOXFLAG recommends against this. HappyWith (talk) 22:06, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * 😢 Alexis Coutinho (talk) 04:52, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith, the link you've provided appears to refer to infoboxes for military conflicts as exceptions to MOS:INFOBOXFLAG. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 02:11, 8 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Read it in full. It is not a blanket exception. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:27, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit request: "Teroboronov"
Please change "Kherson Teroboronov" to "Kherson Territorial Defense Forces," which is the English equivalent of the term that appears in the Ukrainian article. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 17:24, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:41, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH: "Beginning the battle of Mykolaiv"
In the "Aftermath" section, the following sentence appears to violate WP:SYNTHESIS:

Later in March, Russia advanced westward, beginning the battle of Mykolaiv.

I'm making this claim because it seems that this sentence reaches a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source - the NYT article makes no mention of the Russian westward troop movement marking the beginning of a battle. Indeed, the bulk of RS report on combat in and around Mykolaiv well before the fall of Kherson, including during the last few days of February. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 17:36, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ — Removed. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:38, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistency in spelling of the surname of Kherson's mayor
The spellings "Kolykhaev," "Kolykhaiev," and "Kolykhayev" are variably used. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 17:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Good catch. It's a bit like the Zelenskyy/Zelensky/Zelenskiy situation, where there is no established transliteration of his surname so RS use various different ones - but in this article, we should stick to one, preferably the one used in the name of his article. I'll try to get to this when I have time. HappyWith (talk) 18:27, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I just went through and changed them all to Ihor Kolykhaiev to match the title of his Wiki article. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:31, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Bullet points
Hey, I got a question. I looked over MOS:MIL and I am unable to locate where it says bullet points are not allowed. Could you point me to that and/or quote where it says that? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 23:20, 8 December 2023 (UTC)


 * See section on infoboxes. It gives voice to the template documentation and explicitly states what is allowed. Dot points are not included in what is allowed. c (talk) 23:26, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi WeatherWriter, I took a look at the bullet points you had added and had a question about their content. Note that this is not related to the question on whether or not MOS:MIL allows for the use of bullet points, I just wasn't sure where else to put this - feel free to remove my reply and discuss elsewhere if you prefer.
 * Russia captures Kherson and most of Kherson Oblast
 * To avoid possible synth I wanted to ask you to justify the implication that the occupation of most of the oblast was the result of a battle that took place only "in and around Kherson" according to the infobox and the content of the body. To geographically illustrate what I mean, out of the five raions of the Kherson Oblast, it is not clear how control over substantial parts of Beryslav Raion, Henichesk Raion, Skadovsk Raion, and Kakhovka Raion would have been affected by this battle.
 * SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 00:44, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't have been a synth violation. Some sources do state that fact. SCEEUS states, "Russian troops attacking from the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula quickly captured most of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblast" and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty stated, "Russian forces hold most of the part of the Kherson region that is on the east bank of the Dnieper." Exact raion controll wouldn't matter too much since sources state Russia had control of most of the oblast. Even a visual of the Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast infobox map elludes to that. Either way, the discussion I started at MOS:MIL will help solve if they are allowed or not. Some of the most searched battles have them and others don't, so the debate topic should get solved one way or another in that discussion. Thanks for the help and idea to avoid a synth issue! Cheers! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 01:08, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * User:WeatherWriter, thank you for providing these souces. To be clear, I am not disputing that the majority of the Kherson oblast came under Russian control early on in the war. That's essentially indisputable.
 * What I do find questionable is the assertion you attempted to include in the results section of the infobox: the assertion that the majority of the oblast fell as a result of the battle covered in this article. The combat we're defining as the Battle of Kherson here seems to only have taken place within the city limits, in satellite villages such as Chornobaivka, and the nearby Antonivka Bridge; hence my mention of places like Skadovsk and the Beryslav Raion, relatively far from the action. Do RS claim that the oblast fell because the city fell? I wasn't able to locate that claim in the provided references.
 * SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 01:59, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * No, RS don't say that specifically. That said, the battle for Kherson Oblast was this battle, as given by the numerous other towns and cities mentioned during the battle, which Russia all gained control of prior to or on March 2. The occupation/military administration began once Kherson fell, i.e. Russia had almost all of Kherson Oblast when Kherson fell. It's sort of like how Vichy France began right after the ending of the Battle of France ended. So, while RS don't state it, it is an understood thing. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 06:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Dear @WeatherWriter:
 * Many thanks for your reply.
 * I'm glad you brought up the numerous other towns and cities mentioned during the battle. I was going to add another Talk page section to address this but decided that five in a single day was probably more than enough. By numerous other towns and cities, I assume you are primarily referring this sentence on the page:
 * There's a major problem with this sentence: it's completely unsourced, and has been since you added it to the article on November 17th. From your edit summary, I became aware that you were adding content from Бої за Херсон, and were calling on editors to check there for the attribution. Unfortunately, I checked the analogue sentence there and it also lacks a source. As things stand now, I believe the sentence constitutes an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim that must be struck from the article until WP:RS can be found to support it, which will be relatively difficult to achieve considering the bulk of RS state that Russians didn't enter Skadovsk until March 9, 2022, like this one quoting the mayor of the city.
 * So, ignoring that one sentence for now, let's explore the numerous other towns and cities mentioned here. I see the following places: Kherson, Nova Kakhovka, Antonivka, Sadove, Oleshky, Chornobaivka, Zymivnyk, and Komyshany. With the exception of Nova Kakhovka, all of the numerous other towns and cities mentioned fall within an approximate 20km radius of the city center of Kherson, roughly following the curve of the Kherson Ring Road. Please understand that when we are talking about the Kherson Oblast here, we are talking about a place with a square area of nearly thirty thousand square kilometers. You can not realistically justify that the battle for Kherson Oblast was this battle when all the significant combat operations of this battle took place in a twenty kilometer radius.
 * In my opinion, once we start getting into comments like So, while RS don't state it, it is an understood thing to justify our arguments, we are entering extremely murky and frankly dangerous territory as editors, especially as it relates to a conflict still going on its second birthday with minimal formal military-historical analysis to draw on. I need to remind you, per WP:PST, that
 * My very best wishes and thank you for your assistance in implementing my desired changes so far.
 * SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 07:12, 9 December 2023 (UTC)


 * , do you have any other reason as to why bullet points should not be in this article? When asked about this on the MOS:MIL talk page, two different experienced editors basically said it wasn't a MOS:MIL problem. Basically, saying it isn't allowed under MOS:MIL isn't valid, just because it isn't there. You can see their replies here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Military history. One of them even said, It doesn't seem pertinent to this page, since it's a content dispute, and it belongs at Talk:Battle of Kherson. So, if I may, would you mind self-reverting or at least saying a different reason to not have bullet points? Also, if you decide to self-revert, feel free to help us not have a SYNTH issue with those bullet points. Cheers! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 06:35, 9 December 2023 (UTC)


 * WP:ONUS applies. I don't think you can declare a consensus either here or at WT:MILMOS based on 2 responses there (that are arguably not incontrovertible) after 6.5 hours. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:26, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit requests: "194th Belozersky Battalion"
Hello again all, I'd like to address this page's mention of the "194th Belozersky Battalion."

The origin of this terminology appears to be the article titled "Подвиг у Бузковому парку," which tells the story of a military unit called the "194-ий білозерський батальйон" in Ukrainian.

(Presumably) machine translation turned "білозерський" into "Belozersky," likely influenced by the existence of several notable Russian people and Russian places named Belozersky.

But it must be noted that this translation process has taken a Ukrainian word and returned an English word that uses Russian romanization. Given that language is a particularly sensitive issue on articles relating to the Russo-Ukrainian crisis, I don't anticipate any opposition to my request that this article follow the Ukrainian romanization, B i lozersky, in order to properly represent the name of the military unit in question.

In addition to using Ukrainian romanization, I have another suggestion for the way that we translate the name of this military unit. The word "Bilozersky" here is just the adjectival form of Bilozerka, the village west of Kherson where the battalion was headquarted. The article mentions that nearly everyone in the battalion was a resident of a village in the Bilozerka Raion - specifically, it mentions people from Posad-Pokrovske, Chornobaivka, Stanislav, Naddniprianske, and Kyselivka. So maybe it's better for the readers' understanding if the name is translated as the 194th Bilozerka Battalion. Grammatically, it makes no real difference, and there's also the opportunity include a link to the location, so that the name appears as 194th Bilozerka Battalion. I'll leave this suggestion to the discretion of the editors with the ability to edit this page.

I also want to point out that for the Ukrainska Pravda article which contains all this information, the date of publication appears to have been mis-transcribed. It was published on November 8, 2022, not March 8, 2022.

Another small catch: In the infobox, you might also consider "pushing forward" the name of this battalion by one space, in order to represent its subservience to the 124th Kherson Territorial Defense Brigade, which is already well-established.

SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 00:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I will take a look at these in the morning and correct them. They all need fixed, but it will take some formatting/control + f searches to get them all. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 06:39, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

February 2024 checks
Hey, whenever you are done with all the changes for the article, shoot me a ping here. I was not anticipating really any changes to the article, so the article already went through a copy/edit and was a GA nomination.

Part of the GA nomination criteria is that the article doesn't change much day to day. So a ping would be much appreciated once the changes are done, since the copy/edit process probably needs to take place again and the GA nomination may need to be withdrawn pending it. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 06:01, 22 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I'll try to expedite my edits so that the process isn't interrupted too much. But there's a lot more information that can be added, especially from non-English sources. In my opinion, as it stands now the article barely scratches the surface. I'll make this my main priority and let you know when I'm done. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 06:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Overwhelming majority of use of term "Battle of Kherson" refers to different events
Kherson, we have a problem. My analysis below shows that an estimated 93% of instances of reliable sources using the term "Battle of Kherson" use it to refer to events not covered by this article whatsoever.

I performed a Google search for the exact string "Battle of Kherson" (not case-sensitive) on 13 April 2024. Of approximately 157 search results, I managed to access 47 unique pages from seemingly reliable sources (methodology is below) that used the term "Battle of Kherson" a total of 65 times. All direct quotes are included here with context. Notable authors (those with their own Wikipedia pages) have been denoted in parentheses.

The Hindu, 10 November 2022

Euromaidan Press, 18 November 2022

WION, 21 February 2023

India Today, 22 February 2023

The Telegraph, 27 July 2022

Foreign Policy, 2 August 2022

Atlantic Council, 2 August 2022

New York Sun, 6 August 2022 (James Brooke, former Russia bureau chief for VoA and Bloomberg)

The Philadelphia Inquirer, 5 August 2022

Politico, 30 August 2022 (Alexander Temerko, Ukrainian-born oligarch, formerly of the Russian MoD)

GeopoliticalMonitor.com, 31 August 2022

The National (Scotland), 1 September 2022

Daily Express, 3 September 2022 (Richard Spencer, foreign correspondent)

Sky News Australia, 7 September 2022 (Phillips Payson O'Brien, military historian)

The Atlantic, 8 September 2022 (Phillips Payson O'Brien, military historian)

NeoKohn.hu, 13 September 2022

Radar Armenia, 19 October 2022

WBUR, 28 October 2022

RadixUK.org, 4 November 2022 (Renaud Girard, French war correspondent)

TASS, 6 November 2022 (Aleksandar Vučić, Serbian president)

TheAsiaToday.org, 7 November 2022

The Guardian, 7 November 2022

Institute for the Study of War, 9 November 2022

Al Jazeera, 10 November 2022

The Straits Times, 10 November 2022

PolskieRadio.Pl, 10 November 2022

Barron's/AFP, 10 November 2022

ThePrint.In, 11 November 2022

CNBC, 11 November 2022

Firstpost, 11 November 2022

USA Today, 10 November 2022 (Jake Sullivan, U.S. National Security Advisor)

Censor.NET, 11 November 2022

Newsweek, 13 November 2022

Atlantic Council, 10 November 2022 (Andriy Zagorodnyuk, former Ukrainian Minister of Defense)

The Kyiv Independent, 11 November 2022 (Illia Ponomarenko, Ukrainian war reporter)

The Bulwark, 11 November 2022 (Cathy Young, Russian-American journalist)

Revolucion.org.es, 14 November 2022

Newsweek, 17 November 2022 (John Spencer, war researcher and former military officer)

The White House, 21 December 2022 (Joe Biden)

U.S. Department of Defense, 16 February 2023 (Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of Defense)

PBS, 20 February 2023

The Conversation, 23 February 2023

NewLinesMag.com, 26 July 2023 (Michael Weiss, foreign policy writer)

Le Monde, 7 July 2023 (Florence Aubenas, war correspondent)

Academic paper (accessed through ResearchGate), October 2023

CBS News, 10 December 2023 (Scott Pelley, former television anchor and war reporter)

European Union, 23 January 2024 (Josep Borrell, EU foreign affairs representative)

Results I ignored:
 * Results from Wikipedia and its mirrors and forks: WikiWand, Fandom (formerly Wikia), others
 * Results from other Wikimedia projects: Wikipedia Commons and Wikidata
 * Results from self-published sources: YouTube and Dailymotion videos, X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, Substack, Medium, Google Sites and WordPress, blog sites, forums, Quora, and Quizlet
 * Results that only mentioned "battle of Kherson" in headlines and subheadlines, image captions, embedded Tweets, article category tags, "see also" sections, and/or elsewhere outside of the body of the article
 * Results that were republished or otherwise duplicated through wire services, print syndication, live blogs, and/or news aggregation (Yahoo! News)
 * Results with unbreakable paywalls (note: this was only a problem with two (2) unfamiliar websites: StrategyAndFuture.org and GlobalSourcePartners.com)
 * Clearly irrelevant or inappropriate results (including a video game set in Kherson and a reference to the 988 A.D capture of Chersonesus)

I welcome discussion on whether Battle of Kherson remains an appropriate article title in light of this evidence. Questions for consideration: Should a parenthetical disambiguator be added? Should "battle" be replaced with word|s used to describe these events more frequently, e.g. "Russian capture of Kherson"? SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 08:39, 14 April 2024 (UTC)


 * The trouble is the events are so recent and so complex that its hard to know how future historians are going to qualify these; for example, from a historiographic perspective, the entire 2022 Kherson counteroffensive can reasonably be considered to be a singular large battle for Kherson, similar to the Battle of Berlin. A parenthesis disambiguator may be a band-aid fix for now, but this is definitely something that needs coming back to. Curbon7 (talk) 09:34, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Update on GA review comments above
I have implemented some of the more minor recommendations made in the GA review above; I plan on leaving the remaining points to other editors, as I am less familiar with certain sections of this article. For the sake of convenience, I am leaving a record here of which changes I have applied.

Lead/infobox
 * The lead needs to be expanded to double its current size, in order to be a better summary of the article (see MOS:LEAD). ❌
 * Kherson, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine in the infobox need only read ‘Kherson, Ukraine’. ✅
 * Link 192 and 194 in the infobox 124th Territorial Defense Brigade (Ukraine). ✅ (linked 192nd Territorial Defense Battalion (Kherson) and 194th Territorial Defense Battalion (Bilozerka) to 124th Territorial Defense Brigade (Ukraine))
 * Link personnel carrier; rocket launcher. ✅ (linked armored personnel carriers and multiple rocket launchers to armored personnel carrier and multiple rocket launcher)
 * I would consider enlarging the map to fit the infobox. ❌
 * The battle of Kherson – battle needs a capital (in both cases). ❌ (MOS:MILTERMS and MOS:MIL advise against this, and local consensus in Ukraine war articles is also very much against this)
 * by Russian forces - imo should be within the middle of the sentence, not at the end. ❌
 * Kherson was the first major city - ‘Kherson is the first major city’ sounds better imo, as the war is still ongoing. ❌

1.1 Russian invasion
 * Link Dmytro Ishchenko to Іщенко (Дмитро Миколайович (uk)), using Template:Interlanguage link. ✅
 * Link column (Column (formation)). ✅
 * Dup link - Nova Kakhovka. ✅
 * a large Russian force – large is a redundant word here, and so can be removed. ❌
 * by Ukrainian military expert Serhii Hrabskyi – is unnecessary, and i would remove it. ❌
 * the town of Chaplynka – Chaplynka is much smaller than a town. ❌
 * for the city's defense - should be ‘for the defense of Kherson’ (as it has not yet been introduced). ✅
 * The Kherson International Airport - simply ‘Kherson International Airport’? ✅
 * Thereafter – ‘Afterwards’ sounds slightly less formal. ✅
 * nearby makes no sense in this context. ❌
 * Antonivka links to a set index page, to the actual village, so the link needs to be replaced. ✅ (links to Antonivka, Kherson Raion, Kherson Oblast)
 * of the Territorial Defense Forces.[13][5] – not GA, but it is normal practice to have references in numerical order (this happens here and in other places in the article). ✅ (I believe all such cases have now been addressed)

1.2 Battle for the Antonivka Road Bridge
 * Dup link - Antonivka. ✅
 * 8 kilometers – all distances need to be in both km and miles (if not already done), use Template:Convert. ✅
 * the city of Mykolaiv - this needs to be moved to where Mykolaiv is first introduced in the section. ✅

1.3 Ukrainian counterattack
 * Dup link – Oleshky. ✅
 * Link Tweet (Tweet (social media)); the Kyiv Independent; checkpoint (Security checkpoint). ✅
 * I would call Radensk a village (or amend near the towns of Radensk and Oleshky to ‘near Radensk and Oleshky’). ✅ (latter option)
 * in the town of Chornobaivka – perhaps ‘in Chornobaivka’, as it is a village. ❌
 * There is a [better source needed] tag that needs to be sorted. ❌

1.4 Encirclement and Russian victory
 * Dup links - Kherson International Airport; 124th Territorial Defense Brigade. ✅
 * Link Lilac Park (Бузковий парк (uk)). ✅
 * Link Kherson Refinery (and amend Kherson Oil Refinery to 'Kherson Refinery'). ✅
 * Link Svobody Square (Площа Свободи (Херсон) (uk), amended to 'Freedom Square'). ✅
 * "finishing off" – should be replaced with something less euphemistic (see MOS:EUPH). ❌

2 Aftermath
 * Dup link - CNN. ✅
 * Link Ukrainian government (Government of Ukraine). ✅ (Changed to a Ukrainian official, I found Ukrainian government too vague)
 * Consider amending who were armed to ‘who they found armed’ to improve the prose slightly. ❌

4.1 Treachery and collaboration
 * Unlink United States (MOS:OL). ✅
 * Consider linking Journal of Advanced Military Studies (School of Advanced Military Studies). ✅
 * Chatham House think tank – MOS:SOB, consider amending to something like ...’Chatham House, the British-based think tank’. ✅ ('the Chatham House, a British-based think tank')
 * Introduce and link Zelenskyy (using his full name). ✅
 * Link aide (Aide-de-camp); airstrike. ✅
 * I would simplify ...Russia had its agents infiltrated into the Ukrainian security forces.… to ‘Russia had its agents infiltrated into the Ukrainian security forces’. ✅
 * SBU should be unabbreviated. ✅ (Security Service of Ukraine)

4.2 Significance
 * Some of the information in this section sounds obscure. El País – why is it notable that this newspaper described the defeat in this way? Is there a more general consensus that this is the case? Why is the information about the ‘measured spike in bots’ important enough to include here? ❌
 * by analysts - seems unnecessary. ❌

5 See also
 * 2022 Chornobaivka attacks should not be included here, as the link is already in the text. ✅
 * I would query including Pavel Filatyev here. He is not particularly related to the article (see MOS:ALSO). ✅ (I added a quote from his book in the article)

6 References
 * Ref 60 (Smart) has an error message. ❌
 * What makes you think Ref 20 (Twitter) is a reliable source? (see WP:USERG). ❌
 * Ref 23 (Daily Sabah) has a [better source needed] tag. ❌


 * Ref 3 (Pavel Fitalyev) does not have the surname put before the first name. ✅ (now reads Filatyev, Pavel)
 * Avoid using Ukrainian text (e.g. Ref 5 (Рєуцький, Костянтин)), but include it where the words are also in English (e.g. "Вони встали за Херсон. Історії оборонців вільного міста" should read something like "Вони встали за Херсон. Історії оборонців вільного міста" ("They stood up for Kherson. Stories of the defenders of the free city"). ❌
 * Where articles are not in English, the language has not always been given (e.g. Ref 13 (Ukrainska Pravda)). ✅ (I believe all of these have been addressed)
 * Ref 14 (The Kyiv Independent) – link the newspaper. ✅
 * The numerous quotes take up quite a lot of space and are not applied in a consistent way. Are they really needed? ❌
 * Ref 38 (Landry) has (News article), which is not needed. ✅

7 External links Could this source not be incorporated into the article? ❌

Spot checks ❌

SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion on use of Valentyna Romanova in casualties section
Romanova's article, on the topic of decentralization in Ukraine, makes a passing mention of Kherson, saying, without a citation footnote, that the territorial defence unit – up to 300 military personnel – continued to defend the city when the Russian army entered Kherson in tanks. The entire Kherson territorial defence unit was shot in battle by the invaders, which is interpreted by editors on this page as Ukraine sustained 300 military losses during the battle, with the entire Ukrainian defense force at Kherson having been killed during the fighting. This constitutes an WP:exceptional claim and is easily disproven by sources that are far more appropriate to be used in this article like Ukrainska Pravda 1 2 3 which managed to conduct interviews with no less than fourteen living former and current members of the 124th Brigade (the Kherson TrO) who resisted the Russian capture of Kherson: Ihor Likhnov, Mykhailo Baliuk, Ihor Kuraian, Mykola Zozulia, Ihor Hryhorenko, Stanislav Vazanov, Dmytro Ishchenko, Serhii Serheiev, Oleksandr Fediunin, Oleksii Vorontsov, Oleksandr Berezovskii, Oleksandr Kozak, Yevhen call sign "Snake", Oleh call sign "Bear" and photographed probably a dozen more. It is also mentioned in these articles that various additional surviving members of the territorial defense unit took part in guerrilla activities after the Russian capture of the city on 1 March, others joined a reconstituted 192th Battalion/124th Brigade after escaping to Ukrainian-controlled territory at Mykolaiv, and still others joined the 59th Motorized Brigade at Mykolaiv instead. About a dozen members of 194th Battalion/124th Brigade are also reported to have successfully fled the engagement in Buzkovyi (Lilac) Park; several others were taken prisoner by the Russians. Romanova fails WP:ECREE hard. @WeatherWriter SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 05:29, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Let me add few more sources with which that chapter could be written: Key Ukrainian city's rapid fall leaves unanswered questions | AP News and Херсон. Репортаж Елены Костюченко, который «Новая газета» удалила по требованию Роскомнадзора (zona.media) and Битва за Антоновский мост и победа ВСУ под Николаевом. Как и почему Украина пропустила армию РФ из Крыма в феврале 2022 года - BBC News Русская служба . ManyAreasExpert (talk) 08:36, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Compliments on locating these excellent sources. I will incorporate them into the article soon if no one else already has. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I just learned of this section. On the topic of the exceptional claim, all it sounds like is that the phrase in the article should be "Ukraine sustained 300 military casualties during the battle, with the entire Ukrainian defense force at Kherson having been injured or killed during the fighting." Doing that removes the "exceptional" claim aspect and allows the source to be used. I do not support the removal of it entirely nor the source as no discussion has formally stated the author or the authors organization is not a reliable source. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * 300 military casualties I think this number should be more detailed. As I remember from memory, the battle consisted from battles for and around the Antonivsky bridge, and the Lilac park Kherson battle, and perhaps others? I was reading only about Lilac park casualties, which were around 35-45 defenders killed. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 21:28, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The source stated 300, so we can't go into more detail and get an original number. That would be more or less original research I believe. I could be wrong on that though. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:30, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Recent major changes
Ok,, we need to talk because you just did a whole lot of changes without any talk page discussion. So, can you give some reasoning for the following (just wanting to make sure we have a discussion trail, since this was originally GANed, failed, and following the GAN fail, it seems so much is being altered. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 16:23, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) Date ending on March 1?
 * 2) Why you are saying that this article from The Daily Telegraph does not say the phrase "Battle of Kherson", when I just checked and it does. Since you added a "failed verification" tag to it now twice (twice I have checked and verified it), I plan to open a discussion at WP:RSN or request a third opinion (WP:3O) following this since this is a dispute on verification between myself and you it appears. { Discussion started at Reliable sources/Noticeboard The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 16:39, 6 July 2024 (UTC)}
 * 3) Removing AP and ISW from the lead citations. This tacks on to the date changing it appears, but I am mentioning it separately, since plenty of sources say 2 March, including those, and you happen to change the date while removing the verification sources.
 * 4) Valentyna Romanova's citation. This also feels like something that should be discussed probably at RSN, since this is more of a dispute on reliability/usage rather than a true content dispute. If you agree that is probably the case, I would be willing to start that RSN discussion, so the larger community (basically not just me and you) can look at it and discuss it, specifically on reliability/usage.
 * Valentyna Romanova's citation See sources above Talk:Battle of Kherson, with which this piece can be detailed. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Yes, the Telegraph article does refer to the "battle of Kherson" in a drop-down, which may not be readily apparent, but nor is it an authoritative source - particularly when by itself. The placement of that source (next to "battle of Kherson") is inappropriate. It's previous placement at the und of the sentence also appears inappropriate since it does not state an actual date when the "battle" began (only that it was in the first week of the invasion). Cinderella157 (talk) 23:42, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Regarding the date of the capture of the city, it is worth keeping in mind that WP:AGE MATTERS, as does the quality of a source; the three highly-detailed Ukrainian Pravda pieces, which are likely the best sources we'll have on this topic for a while, give the capture date as 1 March, as do the accounts of Filatyev, the participating Russian soldier. This does not necessarily contradict the breaking-news sources you would bring up to justify the capture date of 2 March, as they only say that Kolykhaiev announced in a 2 March message that the city was under occupation, but do not necessarily imply that the occupation had not already begun sometime the previous day.
 * Regarding the failed verification of The Daily Telegraph article, this appears to be your misunderstanding, as I explained on the RSN board you opened. But the underlying issue is a deeper one. We do not have sources that can verify the statement the battle of Kherson began on 24 February 2022. This because the so-called "battle of Kherson" as described here is a Wikipedia construct that was wholly imagined by editors, who themselves defined its geographic and temporal scope. My analysis above, titled "Overwhelming majority of use of term "Battle of Kherson" refers to different events" is pertinent here. I intend on opening a move request discussion to a new title like Capture of Kherson or Russian capture of Kherson though other editors may have better suggestions. I reiterate that there are virtually no reliable sources supporting the framing of the clashes at the river crossing and the capture of the city as a single 5- or 6-day-long contiguous "battle of Kherson". Portraying these events in this manner may be WP:OR and WP:SYNTH.
 * Regarding ISW of 3 March 2022, see the first paragraph above regarding "age matters". Also the language of the source is that Russian forces secured Kherson and secured a negotiated surrender of Kherson on 2 March which does not necessarily contradict the assessment by more recent, long-form, retrospective, non-breaking-news sources that the city was captured 1 March. As for AP News of 5 March 2022, it included very little on Kherson, and only claimed that the city had been captured, but not on any particular date.
 * Regarding Romanova, I have several problems with your new interpretation of
 * as
 * Up to 300 is not necessarily 300. Additionally, it is implied that the < 300 military casualties were allegedly sustained when the Russian army entered Kherson in tanks on 2 March 2022, not over the entire period of time you call the "battle of Kherson".
 * Also, my concerns regarding the source itself remain:
 * WP:ECREE still applies: A 100% KIA or WIA rate for a military unit, especially when it is not described anywhere else, remains an extraordinary claim.
 * Contradictions with higher quality sources: High-quality, high-detail sources like Ukrainian Pravda disagree with almost every assertion made by Romanova's sentence here, including the aforementioned casualty rate of the TrO unit, the aforementioned date the Russian army entered Kherson, the size of the unit itself (closer to 500-600, not up to 300), and the nature of the regular Ukrainian army's operations in Kherson (virtually none following the 24 February retreat)
 * The nature of the source itself: This is a paper on the topic of government decentralization in Ukraine. It makes a single passing mention of the combat in Kherson. Why you insist on retaining its unverifiable, dubious claims in the face of contradictions with information from high-quality, high-detailed sources that actually cover the combat in Kherson as a primary topic is simply beyond me. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 00:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Contradictions with higher quality sources: High-quality, high-detail sources like Ukrainian Pravda disagree with almost every assertion made by Romanova's sentence here, including the aforementioned casualty rate of the TrO unit, the aforementioned date the Russian army entered Kherson, the size of the unit itself (closer to 500-600, not up to 300), and the nature of the regular Ukrainian army's operations in Kherson (virtually none following the 24 February retreat)
 * The nature of the source itself: This is a paper on the topic of government decentralization in Ukraine. It makes a single passing mention of the combat in Kherson. Why you insist on retaining its unverifiable, dubious claims in the face of contradictions with information from high-quality, high-detailed sources that actually cover the combat in Kherson as a primary topic is simply beyond me. SaintPaulOfTarsus (talk) 00:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)