Talk:Denys Prokopenko

Karelia
You call my edit and here "pro-Russia" edits for removing the POV about Russian Karelia being an "ongoing" occupation with people seeking to "liberate" or "free" Russian Karelia. Such statements suggest that Russia is illegally occupying Karelia. That is nonsense, because Russian Karelia is internationally recognized as a part of Russia (unlike Crimea etc) and Finland does not claim any lands from Russia. Are you trying to call the reality "pro-Russia"? Writing about Russian irredentism while promoting Finnish irredentism, this does not belong here. Don't WP:POVPUSH and don't make such comments again. Mellk (talk) 01:53, 14 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep your Kremlin POV-pushing elsewhere, not in the mood for this ridiculous rubbish. There was nothing said about "legal" or "illegal" occupation, that doesn't matter, what's legal to one person/country/international institution is illegal to another, and vice versa. Just because you, a biased Russian imperialist, don't personally believe there is any dispute over any territorial claims made by Russia, does not mean they do not exist. There is literally an article about The Karelian question for a reason. What is relevant here is the backstory of Denys Prokopenko, whose grandparents fought in the Winter War against Russian invasion and suffered loss of their ancestral home territory to Russian annexation, and the younger Prokopenko consequently in his own words says he sees his defense of Ukraine as a new front in the same war against Kremlin occupation. From the POV of Prokopenko—the subject of this article—and what he says inspired him to get into his current military: it is very much relevant, interesting, important backstory backstory details that he sees Karelia as his occupied ancestral land (and sees the same threats to Ukraine now), he uses the Nordic cross Finnic Karelian nationalist flag symbol, even sewn onto his uniform. That's what that flag symbolizes, and that's his pertinent belief, regardless of your opinion. There was no reason to remove any of those details except to push a Moscow Kremlin POV—and, indeed, you have been the only one pushing a biased Russian imperialist political POV here, at the expense of the truth, and to the detriment of the quality of the article. Kindly knock it off, please. And don't give me orders, I ain't your serf. Inqvisitor (talk) 03:23, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * May I remind you about WP:NPA. Don't make such baseless personal attacks simply because I removed POV justifying irredentism of Greater Finland. Do not comment on me. You used language that falsely suggested that Russian Karelia is under military occupation. Sorry but there is no territorial dispute over Karelia; the Karelian question article even explicitly mentions that no such dispute exists between the two countries. Debates about potential negotiations is not the same. And as such, Russian Karelia is internationally recognized as part of Russia. what's legal to one person/country/international institution is illegal to another is nonsense, this is based on international law. Opinion about some Karelians on status of Karelia is irrelevant. Do you consider the same for what Crimeans think? I did not say we should not include his opinions about Karelia, but to outright state that Karelia is under "ongoing" occupation is false and using terms such as "liberate" is POV pushing. But sure, international law is just "Moscow Kremlin POV" and "biased Russian imperialist political POV". Do not continue with such personal attacks, I already asked you to not make such comments, yet you doubled down on them. Otherwise I will have to bring this to the attention of administrators. As such, I politely request you to strikethrough your personal attacks. Mellk (talk) 04:07, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, this edit is problematic because it is reinstating the personal commentary that you added. This is not mentioned in the source and so does not follow WP:V. Nor does it mention anything about the nationalist view. Mellk (talk) 04:10, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * All that matters here is the POV of Denys Prokopenko, nothing else—defintely not your desired debate about the borders of Greater Russia/Soviet Union. It doesn't matter if the person who is the subject of the article thought Vladivostok was their rightful land, if they are the subject of the article that's their opinion to be noted, not a place to debate their POV with counter-views, or erase mention of their view entirely because you disagree with it. I did not add any "personal commentary". You evidently are such a Moscow Kremlin chauvinist that you can't handle the idea of even acknowledging that other people out there might simply hold different geopolitical views than you—as Mr. Prokopenko does! There is, in fact, a territorial dispute—here Denys disagrees with you—whether you, in your supreme arrogance, personally believe it a legitimate view or not.
 * Once again, this is not a legal debate. This is not about real world diplomacy between Russia and Finland. Some see territories forcibly annexed by Soviet Union after military invasion in 1940s as stolen, as today e.g. Ukraine considers Crimea and more stolen by Russia, and many other countries have people with such views. Perhaps they don't teach anything to reflect badly on hero Stalin in Russian schools, but as a matter of historical fact, the people who populate Russian-annexed Karelia today were moved there after Stalin's genocides, ethnic cleansings, forced population transfers to remove hundreds of thousands of original Finnic Karelian people displaced from their ancestral homeland, replaced with people Stalin moved from elsewhere. So some might say what Russia did there (and similar Russian demographic war crimes in many other places, including Crimea) is even far worse than just stealing the land! Anyway, an independent Karelian nationstate that separated from Russia would not even necessarily have anything to do with the modern country Finland, it may just be an independent Finnic state, like Estonia. (Finnic East Karelian Republic has its own flag after all—on Prokopenko's uniform—not to be confused with the Russian Karelia regional flag). Diplomacy between Moscow and Helsinki is totally besides the point. But anyway this is all so so so besides the point, getting way off track from what is relevant here, this article is not about irredentism beyond what the article subject thinks on such subjects; if you want to debate geopolitics find a political forum to debate these topics if you wish. But, you do not get to decide what points of view are legitimate or not, nor are you entitled to dictate whether others' opinions are even allowed to be cited and acknowledged in articles that are about them! Inqvisitor (talk) 04:48, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, I did not say that Denis Prokopenko's views should not be included. That is fine. But the POV pushing is not acceptable, to pretend that Russia's internationally recognized borders (by the UN and every single sovereign state) do not exist. You are pretending that I only removed his personal views and I think they do not belong here; this is very much false, do not pretend otherwise. You added statements claiming ongoing occupation and desires to "liberate" the region, you did not write these as his personal views, this was your personal commentary. Please do not compare Crimea to Russian Karelia. Crimea is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine (and I wonder how you will spin this as a pro-Kremlin POV). Russian Karelia is internationally recognized as part of Russia. Finland does not have any territorial disputes with Russia, including over Karelia. I do not care about the history, Karelia is internationally recognized as part of Russia. This is an undisputable fact and your feelings over it do not matter, nor does it justify you pushing this POV. I am not sure how many times I have to repeat what I said, it is like talking to a wall and this is WP:TENDENTIOUS. I already asked you to stop with the personal attacks and to strikethrough previous personal attacks but you decided to continue. WP:NPA is policy, not something optional, so this will likely need administrator attention. Mellk (talk) 05:10, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Firstly, Estonians have a mixed, Baltic-Finnish origin, and not purely Finnish, because this is an incorrect example, since Estonia is very different from Finland, and secondly, it was precisely the Finns who were evicted during the war, and not the Karelians, since they are different the peoples do not need to be mixed, and the Karelians were generally presented with a separate full-fledged 16th republic from their national communist party, which existed as a full-fledged republic right up to 1956, until it became part of the RSFSR as an autonomous republic, thirdly, if the Karelians wanted so much independence and as you claim without evidence to this day they want, why when, in alliance with Nazi Germany, Finland invaded the USSR during the Second World War and occupied Karelia for three years and managed to participate in the blockade of Leningrad and build concentration camps for Soviet prisoners of war and the Russian population, then for some reason in Karelia there was no mass collaborationism among the Karelians, and simply serious interethnic conflicts Ikts between Russians and Karelians were also not observed, and besides, most of the Finns after the war returned from exile to their former places of residence like Ingermanland and Karelia, although they faced problems with their place of residence when returning to the same Leningrad and its environs, and I’m also surprised that the article says that she allegedly fought for national independence from the Soviet Union, which of course is a dubious statement, because the disputes of historians about whether Stalin wanted to conquer Finland completely or only part of it in order to push the border back is still going on and both sides are pretty serious arguments, so I propose to exclude the statement as biased and not neutral Цйфыву (talk) 16:59, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

No mention of Nazi’s?
It could be relevant that to this page that the Azov Battalion is a Neo Nazi organization and is one of the primary reasons Russia is so focused on Mariupol & the Donbas. When Putin says he is looking to “denazify” Ukraine he is speaking specifically about this man and his battalion. It’s true, unless you drink up western media propaganda like all the other sheep. AZ MattS (talk) 13:48, 30 April 2022 (UTC) — AZ MattS (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. IndigoBeach (talk) 09:47, 13 May 2022 (UTC)


 * adding such information requires citing a WP:RS.
 * So, the question is there any reliable sources that Prokopenko is a nazi or has expressed nazi POV? I've never seen it. Cononsense (talk) 14:25, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Being the leader of an openly nazi organisation should be enough? Do you need a WP:RS to just look at the azov battalion insign?
 * Do you want him to just say "of course i am a nazi and an antisemite, now please western countries give me weapons!" ?
 * The current state of this article is like if Hitler's wikipedia entry referred to him as "Some amateur painter that was involved in ww1 and ww2" 2803:9800:9504:7B33:4B6C:CC1A:D8EF:BD67 (talk) 20:17, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * that symbology, inside of ukraine, is associated with nationalism. people think 'azov regiment', not 'ss'.
 * a lot of nationalist symbology in ukraine has lost their far right connotations since 2014 because of culture appropriation, which not surprisingly happens during wars.
 * academics who have done fieldwork say that the unit is quite diverse ethnically. others who specifically have studied the unit's ideology and symbology suggest they continued to use the symbols after 2014 because it's especially provocative against the totalitarian Donetsk People's Republic#Government and politics where "ukrainian nationalism" is equated with some sort of soviet era bourgeois 'nazi' conspiracy by the west, and the myth of the great patriotic war reigns supreme.
 * anyways, that all is not here nor there, because it is talking about the unit, not the person. i don't think anyone has suggested Prokopenko is a nazi except for in russian propaganda. we can't use that here. Cononsense (talk) 21:51, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * anyone who uses the word 'sheep' to refer to others should not be taken seriously. Even if they are right. It betrays an obvious bias and intolerance of 'wrong' views. 2601:19C:4600:2B20:B486:4FD2:A21F:3089 (talk) 00:27, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Given that he has spent years marching around wearing insignia bearing a black sun emblem designed for Heinrich Himmler, it is reasonable to deduce that he has or had sympathies with that political ideology Daniel Ap Hywel (talk) 04:11, 30 May 2022 (UTC)


 * If you can find an RS that connects his wearing of the insignia to Prokopenko's own alleged Nazism, then yeah, that would be admissible in the article, but if not, I believe that deduc[tion] would unfortunately be original research. HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith (talk) 16:08, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok so do you think that wearing the Sonnenrad and Wolfsangel insignia that Azov has is just an aesthetic choice?
 * If you see someone marching down the street with these symbols, do you think it's far fetched to claim that they are neonazis?
 * short of someone shows you footage of him shouting "I AM A NEONAZI" what else do you need?
 * anyway is the Washington Post a credible source?
 * https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/14/neo-nazi-ukraine-war/
 * far-right nationalists, white supremacists, extremists and neonazis joining and praising specifically a group that has a far-right nationalist rhetoric, neonazi symbols and has a history of OPEN ANTISEMTISM (which is being of course kept low profile now)... isn't that enough for you? 2803:9800:9504:7B33:4B6C:CC1A:D8EF:BD67 (talk) 20:33, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * What? My comment wasn't about Azov as a whole, it was about specifically the claim that Prokopenko himself was a Nazi. I can't read the article bc of paywall, can you provide a quote from it about Prokopenko himself? HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith (talk) 20:53, 14 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I just reverted an edit which put in the lead “Commander of the neo-Nazi and far-right Azov Regiment.” I’m generally urging restraint over use of WP:LABEL and agreed with a prior revert of Lard Almighty - this article is supposed to be about him, not the regiment, and even the regiment does not have this strong a labelling.  I also felt the line was not supported - here the cites were about his being the commander, and elsewhere the article did not have enough on that to merit Lead prominence per WP:LEAD so this prominent a mention is WP:UNDUE.  Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:00, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand, I am not claiming he is a Nazi, nor do I have a source that claims that he is a Nazi. That is not my point. But he is part of a group which has been criticized (by Western sources!) for having neo-Nazi and far-right ties (and numerous neo-Nazi symbols have been seen on them since the war began). The second paragraph of the lede for Azov Regiment mentions this controversy. Thus, it is important to mention the fact that he is part of group which is widely regarded as being infiltrated by neo-Nazis, which is not saying he himself is a Nazi. Frankly, if this was an American organization, there would be no controversy mentioning the regiment is neo-Nazi or far right affiliated. 2601:85:C101:C9D0:3C8C:8ABC:FAE5:66B4 (talk) 00:17, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It simply is not a major part of his personal coverage so is WP:UNDUE to make it a major or prominent part of the article, and not anything in or about his life so hard to see any biographical importance or much to say about it. And without it being a big part of the article, then the recommendations of WP:LEAD is to not have it in the lead.  Think it has been deleted again, so I suggest just see if you can find something specific to him to put lower in the article.   Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:21, 8 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I have excluded a couple of details sourced to an article by Lev Golinkin - per this discussion and our BLP rules. However, if there are some additional strong RS saying the same, this could be restored, I have no objections. My very best wishes (talk) 17:05, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussions at the nomination pages linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:07, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Denys Prokopenko.jpg (discussion)
 * LTC Denys Prokopenko.jpg (discussion)

Row with Ukrainian government
In the last few days Prokopenko plus his wife have criticised the Ukrainian government for allegedly failing to do enough to help the soldiers at Mariupol. Would it be worth adding something to the article about this? Fourdots2 (talk) 19:24, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think this is potentially worth including if can be reliably sourced. My very best wishes (talk) 20:05, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Karelian Finnish or ethnic Karelian?
Karelians (Finns) and Karelians are two different ethnic groups. This article currently has both the Category:Ukrainian people of Finnish descent and the Category:Ukrainian people of Karelian descent. Which one is it? Does Prokopenko have ethnic Karelian or ethnic Finnish ancestry? Super  Ψ   Dro  22:01, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest deleting the information entirely. Telegram channels are not sources that Wikipedia cites and the surname doesn't sound that Finnish.--Oudeís talk 12:05, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Fixed. This info does appear in multiple RS.My very best wishes (talk) 02:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Kateryna Prokopenko
Is she notable enough to have a page or should we wait a bit until more information comes up about her? Just thinking due to her meeting with the pope yesterday and other TV appearances Fourdots2 (talk) 07:37, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * You can try to create something in your user space to see what this would be. My very best wishes (talk) 20:05, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, she’s only notable for one event, so probably not. I think she could be covered in a small section on this page. HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith (talk) 15:15, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you 😊 Fourdots2 (talk) 21:33, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I think I'll wait until more info comes out, I don't speak Ukrainian so wouldn't be able to write anything very long :) Fourdots2 (talk) 21:34, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I guess the info about her (and the campaign by wives) could be included either to this page or to Siege of Mariupol. My very best wishes (talk) 23:04, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately I'm unable to edit the siege of Mariupol page :( Fourdots2 (talk) 23:12, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Information on hooligans groups removed. Why?
This part has been removed with justification: "I think that using Lev Golinkin for sourcing here is a little problematic per discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Azov_Brigade#Lev_Golinkin. And it is not needed." Is there any reason to think that Golinkin lied? Could evidence be provided? Mhorg (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * No, the info that he was a member of "ultras" was NOT removed, as clear from the diff. That was mentioned in many sources. Was he actually involved in any violence, i.e. Football hooliganism, which is not the same as just being a member of "ultras"? I did not see multiple RS about any specific violent incidents of football hooliganism that he would be involved in. My very best wishes (talk) 02:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)