Talk:Anti-Russian sentiment/Archive 9

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Streets named after Brazilians in Brazil is not anti-Russian sentiment and getting rid of streets named after Russian historical figures in Ukraine is????

I removed a section of the article today about the renaming of of streets named after Russian historical figures in Ukraine. It is in not in any way NPOV to suggest that this renaming is anti-Russian sentiment. That Ukrainian officials are working to rid the country's cities of streets named after Russian historical figures like Tchaikovsky or Tolstoy is not necercerly a sign of discrimination; it is common practise in all countries to name streets not after foreigners and Tchaikovsky nor Tolstoy are not seen as being Ukrainians in current Ukraine. This part of derussification in Ukraine is not the same as discrimination. Although just skimming the Wikipedia articles about Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy it could look as them being of Ukrainian decent... But William the Silent of the Netherlands was also of German decent and there are not many streets named after him in Germany and that is supposed to be an example of anti-Dutch sentiment? — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 16:26, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I can only observe that the streets of Rīga Latvia were regularly renamed for famous personalities. including despots, of whatever foreign power was currently in charge.

Ukrainian and Russian language/culture began to split as far as 1,500 years ago, final cleavage is put in the 13th-16th century. "De-Russification" described as "Russophobia" is the propaganda of the Kremlin—which is wreaking a campaign of pro-Stalinification on its own subjects.

There is nothing evil or prejudiced in renaming streets to feature individuals from a nation's own cultural heritage. It's just honoring one's own culture and heritage, not another's conquest. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 18:35, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

In reading the article, as usual, the NYT puts the actual point/state of affairs buried at the end, e.g.

Mr. Kmet, the historian, saw an opportunity to honor the contributions of some Ukrainians whose contributions have been lost to history. He is hoping to name one street in Lviv after an obscure librarian, Fedir Maksymenko, who he said secretly safeguarded Ukrainian culture and books during the Soviet era.

“I and Ukrainian culture owe a lot to him,” he said. “We must work very hard today to preserve what he saved.”

There's nothing wrong with the article cited, but the article text by focusing on "decolonization" rather missed the point of the exercise, which is to honor Ukrainians. After all, if you rename "Water Street" as "Maksymenko Street" calling it "dessication" conflates result with intent. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 18:51, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Context, history, motivation. These all refute your argument  // Timothy :: talk  18:44, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I am sorry Timothy, but at least I am giving arguments. Al you do is write down 3 words and expect everybody to agree with you... What is supposed to be anti-Russian about Ukrainian streets named after Russian historical figures being renamed? Or are you trying to say that this information (the streets being renamed) in the article makes sense? — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 18:52, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

There are definitely sources that see it from such angle, i.e. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/02/1101712731/russia-invasion-ukraine-russian-language-culture-identity PaulT2022 (talk) 19:01, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

The problem is that "pro-Ukrainian" is not by definition "anti-Russian." Renaming streets is pro-Ukrainian. Fire-bombing Russian-owned property is anti-Russian.

It's simplistic and ultimately false to contend that anything and everything that undoes something "Russian" is anti-Russian/Russophobic. That's the Kremlin line.

Regarding monuments and renamings, Russia's invasion has accelerated, not prompted, a natural process. When Latvia achieved independence, it took down the monument to Peter the Great at the center of Rīga and eventually put up the Freedom Monument in its place. That is simply the progression of history. IMHO. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:19, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks VєсrumЬа for this clear wording of what I was trying to say al along. — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 19:32, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

The source PaulT2022 gives here above is about that there are Ukrainians who want to continue speaking Russian language. It does not give anybody's opinion on Ukrainian streets named after Russian historical figures being renamed. Trying to force people not to speak Russian in Ukraine could definitely be qualified anti-Russian. But nobody is doing that in Ukraine.... — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 19:24, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Objection withdrawn: Points above and some research made me change my mind. @Yulia Romero: you made another edit that prevents me from self reverting, but I withdraw my objection.  // Timothy :: talk  19:28, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
• (Not sure that this is a very encyclopedic way to communicate... but I am in a bad mood today...) — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 19:32, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  A new user category needed, Category:Wikipedians in a bad mood. Greetings from Los Angeles  // Timothy :: talk  19:36, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  I was in bad shape yesterday.  // Timothy :: talk  19:38, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• My reading of the NPR coverage is opposite ("He feels new pressure to speak Ukrainian", "We don't want to have anything in common with the Russians who are killing us." etc). Having said that, no objection to remove renaming of the streets unless/until new sources will cover it in greater depth in the future. PaulT2022 (talk) 04:10, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Let me add my to cents. First, let me make one reservation. As we all know, there is currently a war between Russia and Ukraine, and Russia is the aggressor, who committed a totally unprovoked attack of her peaceful neighbour. The war resulted in enormous devastation and suffering of Ukrainian civilians, so all anti-Russian sentiments in present-days Ukraine are totally understandable. Actually, I am not sure we should discuss all of that right now. I am not going to edit this article, at least now. In general, I prefer not to edit articles about modern events, because usually the amount of good sources are insufficient. However, I would like to express my opinion on that matter, because I may be interested to edit this article in future.

The argument about "streets named after Brazilians in Brazil" is flawed. What about a more relevant example? In Moscow, there is a railway terminal named after Kiev, and some Russian official recently proposed to rename it after some Russian city. By applying your arguments, we may argue that it would be "false to contend that anything and everything that undoes something "Ukrainian" is anti-Ukrainian/Ukrainophobic", but we all must agree that that would be utterly insincere. Let's be frank: if Russia rename the Kiyevsky railway station after some Russian city, or rename streets named after after Taras Shevchenko (I think, there are more streets named after Shevchenko in Russia than streets named after Pushkin in Ukraine), everybody would interpret that as a purely anti-Ukrainian act.

Another example. From this news I learned that there is a monument to Lesya Ukrainka in Moscow. If Russian authorities removed this monument and replaced it with Pushkin, would it be an anti-Ukrainian act? Obviously, yes. Therefore, it would be quite correct to interpret a similar action of the Ukrainian authorities as a purely anti-Russian, not just "decolonisation".

Let me reiterate: First, all of that are clear and obvious anti-Russian acts. Second: all of that is quite understandable, keeping in mind all what Russia is doing in Ukraine now.

Next, some users refer to Latvia. This approach is totally flawed for several reasons. First, Latvia is a small country that before 1940 was populated by a small and compact ethnic group (Latvians) with a unique language and culture, and by Jews and Germans. Most Germans fled during WWI and WWII events, and most Jews were killed by Germans and Latvian volunteers during WWII, so the remaining population were mostly monoethnic ... except the fact that, as a result of illegal annexation by USSR, it become diluted with a huge number of Russian speaking migrants, and significantly affected by a foreign cultural influence. Since all of that was a result of illegal actions of Soviet authorities, Europe turns a blind eye on some actions of Latvian authorities, which otherwise would be absolutely impossible in normal democratic countries. There is a consensus that Latvia hardly sets a real precedent, and can hardly be a role model for other post-Communist states.

And, by the way, Latvia is by no means is a good example of a society where no serious tension exist between different groups, so Latvia is not the best example, and it hardly a good role model.

Therefore, I propose to take a look at much better example: Finland. As we know, a part of Finnish territory is populated (and has always been populated) by ethnic Swedes. They live in Finland absolutely legally, and they had always been full scale citizens of Finland. And the Finnish society respects them: there are two official languages in Finland, and all road signs in Finland are written in Finnish and Swedish, and there is a Swedish drama theater in the centre of Helsinki. Accordingly, ethnic Swedes consider themselves as Finns of Swedish ethnicity, but it would be interesting to see if their attitude will not change if some Finnish politician propose to close Swedish theatre or remove Swedish road signs, etc. under a pretext of "decolonisation".

In that sense, there is no difference between Crimea or Donbass and Aland Islands: Ukraine inherited a part of land populated mostly by Russians and Russian speakers, as well as by Greeks, Jews, Crimean Tatars etc (and that is quite normal, for state borders in Europe usually do not coincide with an ethnic map), and that makes Russian (along with Jewish, Hungarian etc) national culture simultaneously a Ukrainian national culture, and that makes, e.g. Pushkin, not a foreign poet, but a Ukrainian poet.

One more explanation is needed. In Russian, two words exists: "Russky" and "Rossiysky". Both of them translate to English as "Russian" but the meaning is different. The former refers to ethnicity, teh latter mostly to nationality/citizenship, and serves as an attribute of the country/state. In that sense, "Russakaya kul'tura" ("Russian culture") refers to teh culture of native Russian speakers (Nabokov is an example), but "Rossiyskaya kul'tura" (it is tranlated as "Russian culture" too), may refer to the culture of Russian state in its modern borders. Musa Jalil can be considered as a representative. Unfortunately, in Ukrainian, there is no such separation: they use the word "Rosiyska" for Russian language (which is a mother tongue for many Ukrainians, so it is not linked to Russia as a state) and for Russian Federation (the state that attacked Ukraine). Accordingly, many people in Ukraine believe that a "Ukrainian writer" is a person who writes in Ukrainian. Meanwhile, such authors as Sándor Petőfi, Sholem Aleichem, and Mikhail Bulgakov should be considered as Ukrainian authors, and I see absolutely no reason to consider Pushkin as a foreign author (in a situation when many Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine love him).

As I explained, I am not going to edit this article until the war ends (hopefully, with Ukrainian victory), but I may start editing it in future. The purpose of this post is to let you know that I disagree with many arguments presented here. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:15, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

• I think most of the arguments above are simply WP:OR. To include something X to this page, one must simply have a couple of RS saying that X is anti-Russian sentiment. For example this source (cited in this thread above) says only the following on the subject: "The war has escalated a fierce anti-Russian sentiment (title). Many here call Russian soldiers "orcs" or "Rushists," the latter a twist on "fascists." Ukrainian officials frequently warn that there is a threat from Russian-speakers in Ukraine who sympathize with Moscow. "It's hard to say, but the [Russians] aren't people for us anymore," says Julia Bragina, a Russian-speaker who co-owns a jazz club and theater in Odesa. She adds: "Yeah, that's mean — that's gross to say." Yes, that is an anti-Russian sentiment and can be included to the page. On the other hand, merely renaming the streets or removing Soviet memorials is NOT described in this article as anti-Russian sentiment and hence does not belong to this page. I agree with Yulia Romero. My very best wishes (talk) 03:49, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Russophobia in Nazi Germany

@Turaids, with regards to your edit comment We need a secondary source that intrerprets its content in the context of anti-Russian sentiment, one of the sources you used says The reason lay in part in long-standing anti-Russian sentiments in the German population, but there's a lot more on this, for example:

• The succinct one-page discussion in Eric R. Wolf's Envisioning Power. Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis, p.260
• Walter Laquer. Russia and Germany: Century of Conflict Chapter 2 - "De Moribus Ruthenorum"

I think the text you've removed from the lead was not only verifiable, but is also sourced in the article text in the "Germany" section.

Furthermore, the Around one in twenty-five civilians in Russia was killed by the Germans during the World War II, in comparison with about one in ten civilians killed in Ukraine or Poland and about one in five civilians killed in Belarus. you've added is outright misleading to a reader not familiar with the context. This percentage appears to be calculated in relation to the population of these groups in the Soviet Union and while it's true that the Ukraine, Poland and Belarus suffered much more than Russia, we can't compare percentage of civilian deaths in regions that were fully occupied and Russia that was occupied perhaps to a quarter of its populated area, and also for a much shorter period of time to imply that Russian were treated five times better than Belarus. PaulT2022 (talk) 21:00, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I find it odd that you immediately object to listing proportional civilian losses as "outright misleading", yet didn't seem to have a problem with trying to pass total Soviet POW and civilian deaths as Russian ones. How about we remove the numbers altogether then? The Russian civilian deaths were clearly much lower (both proportionally and in absolute numbers) than for other East Slavic nations, so they in itself do not "prove" any distinct anti-Russian sentiment. And I completely share @Kawnhr: sentiment about not having the energy or interest to engage in the constant back-and-forth. I can't even find the text you say I've removed in this hodgepodge anymore, so I can't comment on that. My wholehearted recommendation would be to first focus on resolving the big problems (passing everything anti-Soviet as anti-Russian, for example) and leave the nit-picking of work from other editors at the end, otherwise huge amounts of energy are wasted before much is even done. –Turaids (talk) 23:47, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

The "didn't seem to have a problem" comment is completely misdirected. I trimmed coverage of WWII in the lead previously and suggested on the talk page that it should be rebalanced further to mirror amount of historical coverage in the article, which is probably 2/3 English-French 19th century Russophobia and 1/3 Germany.

In the first half of my comment I was referring to this edit. The claim in edit comment contradicts the sources I've linked above, as well as one of the sources you've added - all three do talk of "distinct anti-Russian sentiment". PaulT2022 (talk) 01:25, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

@PaulT2022: thank you for your patience and sorry for the delayed reply. I didn't say you hadn't worked on improving the article, but that a much more misleading statement (IMO) had remained after you had done so. I suggested removing the numbers altogether after rethinking that me adding the other death numbers might have been an attempt to swing the pendulum the other way as a suboptimal way of achieving balance, instead of just stopping the pendulum from swinging in the first place. The only way including total Soviet death numbers in an article about anti-Russian sentiment could make sense to me is if enough sources make an assertion that the Nazis killed many of the non-Russian Soviets because of their perceived Russianness. –Turaids (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I have no opinion on inclusion Soviet death numbers per se. I'd expect that an average reader of a niche article like this understands differences between Russia and Soviet Union, the numbers were clearly stated as Soviet deaths rather than Russians, so didn't perceive it as an issue.

I think the figures that were added are problematic though. The absolute per-ethnicity numbers from Rummel don't quite match the mainstream figures, i.e. for Ukraine its significantly lower than both Soviet and contemporary Ukrainian estimates even if you add up Rummel's number for Ukrainians and the total number of murdered Soviet Jews (many were in Ukraine). Is it his own WP:PRIMARY estimate? I couldn't find a reference to the source in his text. A comparison from Snyder is technically correct but grossly misleading for the reasons I described above.

Do you think there's a way to phrase this without swinging pendulum either way so to speak? Ideally using an uncontroversial source that is unambiguously secondary and preferably neutral. PaulT2022 (talk) 04:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

The article trying to connect the total Soviet deaths to anti-Russian sentiment through a mix of Nazi anti-Russian, anti-Slavic and anti-Soviet statements still seems like WP:SYNTH to me, which could then be similarly done for other Soviet ethnicities the Nazis have killed and spoken against.

I'm sure we can both agree that the Nazis killed Russians because of a mix of anti-Russian, anti-Soviet and anti-Slavic sentiments, out of which we seem to be assuming the anti-Russian sentiment as the primary one, rather than referring to reliable sources that make that assertion for us by taking into account everything, including your valid counterpoint about the degree Nazis occupied different Soviet regions having an effect on the ethnic composition of Soviet deaths. It's a strict approach, yes, but one I believe is needed for an article that already conflates so many different things. –Turaids (talk) 11:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

My read of the sources is that all three sentiments were inextricably linked by Nazis; especially in Wolf, who describes how Russian state was seen as an absolutist power that used to be headed by Germans who were replaced by Jews, which ruled all Slavs presumably incapable of having their own states.

I'm in agreement that the numbers are best to be removed until someone comes up with a way to solve valid concerns that were brought up. PaulT2022 (talk) 12:40, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Trying to make sense of ramblings from xenophobic fanatics like the Nazis can be a slippery slope. As My very best wishes pointed out below, the two Nazi quotes from the World War II section, for example, bring up everyone from Russians to Jews, Slavs, Czechs, Bolsheviks, Huns, Magyars, Tartars and the Mongols. The image caption also seems to equate the "Red Army" to "Russian Army" while using a book about the history of Wehrmacht as a reference. If we need to have a separate discussion to deal with every piece of content like that then it will take a very long time to fix this article. –Turaids (talk) 10:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Murdered civilians / deaths

How about we remove the numbers altogether then? - I don't disagree with this, wonder what other editors think? The way the deaths' numbers are worded currently sounds like a bizarre contest in who lost more lives and I'm not sure these comparisons are useful without a source relating them to the sentiment.PaulT2022 (talk) 21:12, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Since we both agree now and no one seems to disagree, I'll remove them. If we find an appropriate way of presenting them we can add them again later. –Turaids (talk) 11:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

That was good removal (I too agree), but you made a good argument this whole thing does not belong to the page. Nazi hated pretty much everyone, Jews, all Slavs, "Soviets", etc. There is no evidence that they hated ethnic Russians any more than Belorussians, Ukrainians, etc. That is obvious even from citations of Nazi on the page: What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not interest me in the slightest... (yes, sure, that did not make any difference for them) or "you are carrying on the same struggle, against the same sub-humanity, the same inferior races, that at one time appeared under the name of Huns, another time— 1000 years ago at the time of King Henry and Otto I— under the name of Magyars, another time under the name of Tartars, and still another time under the name of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Today they appear as Russians under the political banner of Bolshevism". Well, he is not talking about ethnic Russians. Hence, the inclusion is not obvious, although no questions, they hated Russians. My very best wishes (talk) 21:06, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Russophobia types

I could not locate a source for the core of the new section Anti-Russian_sentiment#Russophobia_vs._other_types added by @Micga recently.

Specifically, I couldn't locate a source that would directly support the Irrational, primitive and ethnicity-driven hatred, despise, fear or prejudice of other type against Russians due to xenophobia, xenoracism or ingrained stereotypes (pejorative clichés), which may in some cases lead to ethnic violence or unfair ethnic discrimination, is called Russophobia... Russophobia in this sense should by no means be confused with distrust or fear towards the Russian state as an international political actor or condemnation of its authorities, often most fervent in the Slavic countries repeatedly coming throughout history under oppression of the Russian state in its various incarnations contradistinction.

The In contrast to countries such as postwar Germany where thorough denazification made the society acknowledge its collective guilt, none of the abovelisted events and activities have been subjected to any serious public debate attempts in Russia, while historiography taught in Russian schools continues either to omit these events entirely or to tell them in a version entirely invented during the Soviet era doesn't appear to be supported by the cited sources either, as none of them discuss this rather extensive list of events.

I couldn't figure a way to access the source to which athough negative attitude towards contemporary Russian state, its supremacist and expansionist ideology and its aggressive actions is currently widespread in Western liberal democracies, it may not be considered Russophobic, as it is neither irrational nor driven by ethnicity, but is motivated rather by the moral disengagement among the Russian troops and decisionmakers is cited, however, the abstract leaves the impression that the source is not about anti-Russian sentiment or Russophobia at all. PaulT2022 (talk) 18:14, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

The problem is that the article originally denoted as Russophobia both the negative sentiment towards the Russians and the negative sentiment towards Russia. It is comparable to denoting as anti-Semitism both the negative sentiment towards the Jews and the negative sentiment towards Israel, although they are obviously far from being identical.Micga (talk) 07:05, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

And here are some specific passages describing the dichotomy:

• “Newspeak: How Russia blurs reality with fictional words: “russophobia” 26 January 2023 16:21 After the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine, Western states supporting the Ukrainians stopped or limited trade with the aggressor; well-known brands left the Russian market; a significant number of European countries closed their airspace and imposed retaliatory sanctions on the criminal actions of the Russian army. To explain why the world reacts this way to the “special military operation”, Russia uses the word “russophobia”. “Russophobia” is the term for all actions aimed at deterring Russian aggression against Ukraine. According to the messages of the Kremlin media, this is a completely groundless phenomenon, which means hatred for everything Russian: from products to culture. According to the definition of Russian wikipedia, there is a kind of “russophobia” on a cultural and ideological basis, which arose because of the West's idea of its own superiority in cultural and economic terms, and Ukraine fell under the destructive influence of the West. The main idea promoted by the Russian media - ”russophobia”, that is, all measures to stop Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, has no reason. In fact, the so-called “Russophobia” is nothing more than a response to the actions of the Russian army, leadership and people. The Russians bear collective responsibility for the aggression against Ukraine, which they supported either by their respective statements or silence. World condemnation and sanctions against the aggressor are the consequences of Russia's criminal actions, and not vice versa, as Moscow is trying to convince everyone. Russia presents “russophobia” as a separate type of Nazism, which originated in Ukraine and is massively spreading around the world. Anyone who criticizes Russia is a russophobe, and, accordingly, a Nazi. At first, the disinformation message about “russophobia” was aimed more at the Ukrainian audience, but after the international community supported Ukraine in the war, it spread to European countries as well. It even went as far as accusing Israel of Nazism. Russia substitutes the meanings of concepts. The Kremlin media put the meaning of another term into the word “russophobia”, namely xenophobia – a sharp rejection of a foreign culture, language and way of life, which can manifest itself in the political life of the state through discrimination based on national and cultural grounds. The meaning of this word in a much narrower sense, according to Russian propaganda, is hidden behind the term “russophobia”. With so-called russophobia, Russia also justifies the attack on Ukraine. This is the second text for the new section “Newspeak”, which Detector Media is launching as part of the “Disinformation Chronicles” project. In it, we will tell and explain new lexemes that Russian propaganda uses to distort reality. We recall that the newspeak is an artificial language from George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984”. In the novel, Newspeak names words that lose their original meaning and have a completely opposite connotation. For example: war - peace. According to the plot of the novel, such a technique was used by the totalitarian party. It was it who gained popularity among representatives of real totalitarian regimes. In particular, Nazi and Russian.”
• “Not all anti-Russian sentiment classifies as Russophobia.”
• “It is worth to note that criticism of Russian political elite should not be understood as an expression of Russophobia, since the latter mainly denotes negative sentiments and fear of Russian people, culture and country as a whole etc. Nevertheless, Russia’s current propaganda and considerably increased role of the state in the public domain enables to the current regime to portray the harsh Western criticism directed toward the ruling elite as hatred of everything Russian. Based on it, in ensuing section, I will discuss how Russia benefits from these anti-Russian sentiments.”
• “The materials from this conference confirm that ‘Russophobia’ is becoming an increasingly wide-ranging concept, stigmatising not only the societies of other countries, but also the citizens of Russia itself. This extended interpretation of the concept allows its use as a double-headed informational weapon. It also allows a continua- tion of the fight with the enemy, both external and internal; the latter used to be referred to as the ‘fifth’ (so-called foreign agents) and ‘sixth columns’ (so-called liberals).”
• “ Abusing the term: Russophobia as a wild card.The term ‘Russophobia’ is also constantly misused by Russian media such as RT in German, which uses it to justify and explain any event, e.g., claiming that Russophobia is the reason why Western media are lying about Ukraine. The concept pushes victimisation even regarding unrelated topics on the Russian agenda, i.e., explaining Japan’s removal of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment from the list of neo-Nazi organisations back in 2021”
• “By equating opposition to Kremlin policy with irrational anti-Russian feelings, Putin melds the state and the nation. By extension, opposition to the state can only come from opposition to the nation. This makes dissent socially taboo — Putin’s policies are so self-evidently beneficial to the Russian people that only those who wish ill on them could disagree with their president. So it is that those Russians appalled by the reckless aggression of a bloody regime which isolates them from the rest of the world, and threatens to impoverish the country, are described as traitors.(…) term would not become a fixture in Russian media until 2021, however, as the regime began to prepare the population for war. Putin’s rambling revisionist piece, On The Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,from last year, includes the term and uses it to explain why the outside world wrongly regards Russians and Ukrainians as separate peoples. The term then began to proliferate, preparing audiences for Putin’s December 2021 remarks that Ukrainian actions in Donbas amounted to genocide, which, as this author wrote last year, marked the point of no return on the path to war. By 2022, russophobia had become the lens through which Russian media and leadership filtered all geopolitics. By associating opposition opinions with simple hatred, the regime effectively delegitimizes avenues of dissent. And the portrayal of outsiders as gripped by an animalistic hatred so strong that they become immune to logic, has helped to build solidarity: only those within can be trusted, what the outsiders say is without logic. ”

Micga (talk) 18:55, 12 March 2023 (UTC) Micga (talk) 18:55, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @Micga! I had a quick look and on the first glance it appears that only Sean Guillory's opinion column supports the "not all anti-Russian sentiment is Russophobic" claim and only for contemporary US, although it's worth noting that he follows it almost immediately with I prefer to narrowly define Russophobia as when Russia, its government or its people are positioned as civilizational threats. (Emphasis mine.), which is opposite of what you wrote in this section.

I'd support describing that distinction in the article the way it's described in his opinion piece, in application to modern US politics. Do you have a proposed wording for it? I've tried to describe in the article when Russiagate previously, but failed to come up with the wording and sourcing that would achieve consensus; definitely support it in some form.

The rest of the sources are describing false claims of Russophobia by Putin/propaganda, rather than the "anti-Russian sentiment is not Russophobic". This is extensively described in Anti-Russian_sentiment#As_a_polemic_device and in the last paragraph of the lead. Have you seen it? Do you have a proposed wording to expand it?

Could you please respond to the two last paragraphs of my initial message in this thread as well? PaulT2022 (talk) 03:15, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Very abnormal writing in the Rest_of_Europe section

It is mostly a list of mid 20th century events pertaining to the Soviet Union. There are very few citations. The few citations that are there do not tie these events with the current anti-Russian sentiment. This list also does not use NPOV language. 70.51.101.87 (talk) 08:53, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Sourcing - Opinion Pieces

A couple of major claims in the lede rely exclusively on opinion pieces published in Axel-Springer media. Axel-Springer sources are of doubtful reliability (Bild is listed as a unreliable source WP:BILD), doubly so for an opinion piece. I would recommend moving the claim out of the lede and attributing it appropriately in-text. I would also be ok with deleting the claim outright. CamAnders (talk) 23:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Very abnormal writing in the Rest_of_Europe section

It is mostly a list of mid 20th century events pertaining to the Soviet Union. There are very few citations. The few citations that are there do not tie these events with the current anti-Russian sentiment. This list also does not use NPOV language. 70.51.101.87 (talk) 08:53, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Sourcing - Opinion Pieces

A couple of major claims in the lede rely exclusively on opinion pieces published in Axel-Springer media. Axel-Springer sources are of doubtful reliability (Bild is listed as a unreliable source WP:BILD), doubly so for an opinion piece. I would recommend moving the claim out of the lede and attributing it appropriately in-text. I would also be ok with deleting the claim outright. CamAnders (talk) 23:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC)