Talk:Russian Orthodox Army

Since we have sources speaking both for and against this, article needs to reflect this until the historians reached some kind of consensus on the topic. BP OMowe (talk) 18:01, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

There's no contradiction. I have the book in front of me. The relevant page (p. 207) reads (note: RNE or "Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo" = RNU):

"The most famous of them, Pavel Gubarev, a prominent spokesman with multiple titles (leader of the Donbas militia, governor of the Donetsk People’s Republic, its foreign affairs minister, and the founder of the Novorossiya party), claimed to lead the RNE section in Donetsk. He thanked the movement for providing him with military training in the early 2000s, and videos from the RNE congress confirm his attendance.79 However, there is no reliable information about when the RNE affiliates in Ukraine were created.80 An RNE office is said to have opened at the central administration of Donetsk in the early months of the insurrection. Dmitrii Boitsov, leader of the so-called Orthodox Donbas organization, is rumored to have taken orders from Barkashov. 81 Mikhail Verin, commander of the “Russian Orthodox Army,” also is suspected of being close to Barkashov, but these links are mentioned by unreliable Ukrainian sources, and the movement’s Facebook page displays no particular link to the RNE.82 The fact that Barkashov did celebrate the insurgents’ actions on his Facebook page does not mean that they took orders from him." - Laruelle, M. (2019). Russian Nationalism: Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields. United Kingdom: Routledge.

EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Disputed connection should be kept out of lead. I covered the above text from book in my recent edits. Dhawangupta (talk) 05:33, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that is what ONE source say, which is CONTRADICTORY to what the OTHER sources say. Is Laruelle's book authorative enough to throw all other sources out as unreliable, including her own article in the N.Y. Times, where she sourced the connection between Barkashov and Boritsov as established through the Ukrainian Security Service, complete with the wiretapping publically published on YouTube? Is the cited interview with Barkashow unreliable? Should Nikolay Mitrokhin be dismissed as a source because that book? If the answer is yes to these questions, we have a consensus, otherwise I must insist on having them included, and the article stating that there is not established to which degree RNU and ROA are connected. BP OMowe (talk) 21:04, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

We believe WP:SCHOLARLY sources over the unreliable and outdated sources you are spewing without linking any of them. If you have a better source then post here instead of engaging in disruptive edit war. GenuineArt (talk) 16:50, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

The article was reverted since no justification was made to base the article on a single source of Laruelle, M. (2019). Russian Nationalism: Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields, which conflicts with the N.Y Times article by the same author as well as the two other sources^[1][2] . Yet both these sources (as well as others already present in the article at the time) were removed entirely in the new version by EnlightenmentNow, the sole justification given a quote from the first mentioned book: "but these links are mentioned by unreliable Ukrainian sources", in spite of exactly what sources are referred to is unknown.

If this quote is to be used to justify the removal of all other sources, just being a scholar is NOT enough, it needs to be a scholar of such authority that questioning it is impossible. BP OMowe (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2022 (UTC) BP OMowe (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Your two articles from "the two other sources" are from 2015 (only a footnote) and 2016 (cites a source from 2014). These unfounded claims have been rejected by Laruelle in 2019 book with extensive details. Matter is settled because there is no one else raising this issue in scholarly literature anymore. That's why we need to depend on Laruelle's book per WP:SCHOLARLY. GenuineArt (talk) 19:52, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Taking this right from the sources ofrestored version of the article:

Mitrokhin, Nikolay (2015). "Infiltration, instruction, invasion: Russia's war in the Donbass" (PDF). Ournal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society. 1 (1): 234, note 38.
Likhachev, Vyacheslav (July 2016). "The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine" (PDF). Russie.NEI.Visions in English. pp. 18–28. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
Kuzio, Taras (2015). Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism. ABC-CLIO. pp. 110–111. 
Then there is the article by Laruelle from 2014.

The problem with that quote "unreliable Ukrainian sources" is that there is no way to tell which sources she it talking about, and I'm not prepared to eliminate ALL sources connected to Ukraine without some assurance that Laurelle is the foremost expert in her field and thus has the weight to make that assertation.

• Vyacheslav Likhachev is from what I can find has a Ph.D. in History from the Moscow Lomonosov University.
• Nikolay Mitrokhin is described as a "Historian, sociologist of religion and political analyst. Associated academic fellow of the Research Center for East European Studies at * Bremen University"

Taras Kuzio has his own wikipedia page, would he qualify as a scholar? BP OMowe (talk) 20:48, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Ooops, the formatting went awry... fixing it since I wanted to clarify that the above sources were the ones I objected to have removed without discussion, not some tabloid links. While older, they don't become obsolete unless there is a scientific consensus in the field of expertise, but if someone can show such I concede without objection right away. BP OMowe (talk) 20:58, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

None of these sources dispute what Laurelle said. They are outdated and they depend on the information from 2014 sources that are deemed unreliable by Laurelle.

Your back to back reverts are not only repeating your unfounded claims about RNU but also removing lots of content unrelated to your dispute here.

I have already analyzed the first 2 sources. Nikolay Mitrokhin is from 2015 with only a footnote and Likhachev is from 2016 which cited a source from 2014. Your new source is ABC-CLIO which is a dubious publisher per WP:RSN discussion and Taras Kuzio in this book made no connection of ROA and RNU. You should ignore these sources.

Matter is settled because there is no one else raising this issue in scholarly literature anymore. If you have a source which rejects the conclusion by Laurelle then mention that source instead of repeating years old outdated sources which are themselves insufficient.

Per WP:SCHOLARLY, we prefer the recent modern scholarship the most. You can well argue about removing all mentions of RNU since nobody is there to dispute the research from Laurelle. GenuineArt (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

May I remind you that consensus is one of the Five Pillars? Also note that WP:SCHOLARLY does not state that the most resent is the preferred one. As for the RNU connections, they are established through sources on the RNU page as well,,, including Laurells's book. What she refuted was the connection between the current leader and RNU, not that ROA was founded by RNU though she is specific with that it can not be established exactly when it happened. So we're back where it started: there is an article with scholar sources (as I noted you have not objected to the classification of the sources I brought up indeed are such), to which Laurelle's book (her article already there) should be added, with any discrepancies included just like any other article where it can not be clearly established by experts in the particular field which is correct. BP OMowe (talk) 22:37, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Which consensus are you looking for? Enough editors agreed with the version I am restoring before you started doing unnecessary edits today which have been challenged here but you are edit warring.

There are no discrepancies at all. Per WP:SCHOLARLY, we do prefer the recent modern scholarship the most. Laurelle finds no connection between ROA and RNU.

The article already talks about the unfounded connection between ROA and RNU and then provides a rebuttal. You want the article to promote and outdated rejected view over the scholarly view, but that is not going to happen.

Now I am going to care less about your personal opinions that violate WP:OR. GenuineArt (talk) 22:57, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

This seemed to have even confused at least one editor on RU Wikipedia who's written Дмитрий Бойцов (Dmitrii Boitsov) as leader of the Russian Orthodox Army (Русская православная армия) instead of Orthodox Donbas (православный донбасс). The latter org was never as prolific as the former, but there are recorded conversations (May 2014) between Boitsov and Barkashov, and they share essentially the same ideological background, however I'd have to dig deep into RU web to find out if Orthodox Donbas still even exists. While I'm at it, I'm also going to try and find more recent references to the Russian Orthodox Army, and especially where the 4,000 figure comes from and what exactly was its relationship with Strelkov. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 20:13, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

From http://www.eoi.at/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Ukraine-gon_eng_web.pdf:

"Number of personnel: unknown (according to Russian journalists, approximately 4,000; according to witnesses, up to 500)"

"The Russian Orthodox Army was created in May 2014 on the basis of the Shchyt"

"In September 2014, the Russian Orthodox Army changed its format and joined the new Oplot Fifth Separate Infantry Brigade."

I updated the article to reflect this. 106.215.40.96 (talk) 17:09, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

That's more like it! I can't "thank" you for an edit until you've registered. Why don't you sign up and join us? - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 17:21, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Why you made this edit? There is no other source disputing it and there is no source which confirms their activity after 2014. 106.215.40.96 (talk) 18:46, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

According to the Russian article of Russian Orthodox Army, ROA was "Created from a number of small groups of rebels - "Russian Volunteer Army", "Sarmat", "Orthodox Donbass", "Shield" Division." No source of course, but are you sure it is wrong? BP OMowe (talk) 01:44, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Matveeva, A. (2017). Through Times of Trouble: Conflict in Southeastern Ukraine Explained from Within. United States: Lexington Books.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/10/ex-russian-separatists-on-whether-another-ukraine-war-is-possible

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/paramilitary-forces-ukraine-matches-powder-keg

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/battle-debaltseve-hybrid-army-classic-battle-encirclement

Shore, M. (2018). The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution. United Kingdom: Yale University Press. (p. 234)

Kaarina Aitamurto, Sanna Turoma, Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover. Religion, Expression, and Patriotism in Russia. (2019). Germany: Columbia University Press. (p. 42)

Kuzio, T. (2015). Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism. United States: ABC-CLIO. (p. 110)

- EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 17:38, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

They don't offer anything that hasn't been already covered on this article.

And don't make edits like you did here because the source does not say that these groups are "related volunteer groups" but as one of the "many groups of nationalist volunteers active in the Donbas". We don't need information about them just to distract from this Russian Orthodox Army that has no connection with them. 106.215.40.96 (talk) 17:51, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Wow, you're a quick reader!

Shall I quote more from the source you seem keen to denounce, shall I? To support my case that it is of scholarly worth?

green text "The Ukrainian state is decried as an artificial construct sponsored by the Bolsheviks to weaken Russia. Many of the insurgent groups are rooted in the same ideological brand. One of them, the “Russian Orthodox Army,” stresses its religious identity. Its fighters added an Orthodox cross to the Novorossiya flag and present themselves as “crusaders” and “soldiers of Christ” (voiny khristovye). Their website justifies violence, stating, “Orthodoxy is the religion of the strong.” On one of the official sites of the Donetsk Republic, ikorpus.ru, an anonymous text declares, “Above all, we are fighting for Christ, transmitted to us by our parents and ancestors.” (p.201-2)

green text Even if their ideological background is only vaguely formalized, the massive presence of Cossack troops in eastern Ukraine favors the revival of this “white” reading of Novorossiya... (p. 203)

green text The RNE is a unique case of a defunct nationalist organization whose name became such a brand that it can be instantly reactivated, based only on its faded glory. The movement’s website, soratnik.com, dormant since 2006, was relaunched with the crisis in Ukraine. Many central figures in Donetsk have referred, directly or indirectly, to the RNE. The most famous of them, Pavel Gubarev, a prominent spokesman with multiple titles (leader of the Donbas militia, governor of the Donetsk People’s Republic, its foreign affairs minister, and the founder of the Novorossiya party), claimed to lead the RNE section in Donetsk. He thanked the movement for providing him with military training in the early 2000s, and videos from the RNE congress confirm his attendance... (p. 206-7)

green text Novorossiya was a unique theater for Russian nationalism... Anti-Semitism is one common thread, as Jews can be concurrently denounced as oligarchs and capitalist bankers, as enemies of Christianity and of Russia, and as polluting the White Aryan race... In fact, the second and third ideological themes behind Novorossiya exhibit anti-liberalism but a pro-European posture: through Christian connections for the former, and through the White Power slogan for the latter, they have developed deep interactions with some of their Western European counterparts.

green text These three motives also overlap in some of their networks. Dugin is a producer of both the first and the third interpretations, faithful to his dual Eurasianist and neo-fascist stance. Some youth groups, such as the Russian Imperial Legion, play on both the Black Hundreds and neo-Nazi imagery. Last but not least, the third motif is the most paradoxical, as it reveals an open fracture within the neo-Nazi groups between pro-Ukrainians – still a minority – and pro-Russians. (p. 208-9)

EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 18:28, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

N.B. Pavel Gubarev, alleged founder of the ROA (and the New Russia Party) was both an openly declared adherent (claimed to be a member in fact) of the neo-Nazi RNE. His political party is/was not explicitly neo-Nazi, but Duginist neo-fascist. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 18:32, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Except for the first paragraph, the rest of the whole text is about RNE, not ROA. Two different groups. 106.215.40.96 (talk) 18:34, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Indeed... Tak, I'm gonna call it a day here. Dobryy vecher. - EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 18:51, 9 April 2022 (UTC)