Talk:2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8: 21 days

WARNING: ACTIVE COMMUNITY SANCTIONS

The article 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive, along with other pages relating to the Russo-Ukrainian War, is designated by the community as a contentious topic. The current restrictions are:

Only extended-confirmed editors may make edits related to the topic area, though editors who are not extended-confirmed may post constructive comments and make edit requests related to articles within the topic area on article talk pages. Should disruption occur on article talk pages, administrators may take enforcement actions against disruptive editors and/or apply page protection on article talk pages. However, non-extended-confirmed editors may not make edits to internal project discussions related to the topic area, even on article talk pages. Internal project discussions include, but are not limited to, Articles for deletion nominations, WikiProjects, requests for comment, requested moves, and noticeboard discussions.

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be sanctioned.

Remedy instructions and exemptions
Enforcement procedures: Violations of any restrictions and other conduct issues should be reported to the administrators' incidents noticeboard. Editors who violate any listed restrictions may be blocked by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense. An editor must be aware before they can be sanctioned.

Ukraine High‑importance

	Ukraine portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ukraine, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Ukraine on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.UkraineWikipedia:WikiProject UkraineTemplate:WikiProject UkraineUkraine articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Russia: Military Low‑importance

	Russia portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Russia, a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of Russia on Wikipedia. To participate: Feel free to edit the article attached to this page, join up at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.RussiaWikipedia:WikiProject RussiaTemplate:WikiProject RussiaRussia articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Russian, Soviet, and CIS military history task force.

Military history: European / Russian & Soviet / Post-Cold War

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	European military history task force
	Russian, Soviet and CIS military history task force
	Post-Cold War task force

Other talk page banners

Text and/or other creative content from this version of 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive was copied or moved into Timeline of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with this edit on 2 August 2023. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

Mealie, Daniel; Barros, George; Kagan, Frederick W. (17 September 2023). "Ukraine's Operations in Bakhmut Have Kept Russian Reserves Away from the South". Institute of the Study of War.
"Miscalculations, divisions marked offensive planning by U.S., Ukraine". Washington Post. 4 December 2023.
"In Ukraine, a war of incremental gains as counteroffensive stalls". Washington Post. 4 December 2023.
Biddle, Stephen (29 January 2024). "How Russia Stopped Ukraine's Momentum". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 29 January 2024.

Battle of Neskuchne was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 12 September 2023 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

Updated Map[edit]

It might be a good idea to have the map at the top of the page to only contain liberated areas in 2023. It could be kind of confusing for people unfamiliar with the war to see all the huge blue areas and then see "Russian defensive victory".

Why are Russian losses in the infobox listed as "heavy"?[edit]

From what i know Russian forces did not suffer from heavy losses given they were able to launch their own offensive almost immediatly afterwards? D1d2d3d29 (talk) 15:59, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or at least they are not nearly as heavy as Ukranian ones given that Ukraine apparently stopped the offensive because they units comitted to it started running out of infantry D1d2d3d29 (talk) 16:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It suffered much smaller losses than Ukraine and, overall, probably relatively minor losses, unlike Ukraine, and this was the reason why it was then able to conduct its own offensive. Bortak42 (talk) 16:59, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Russian losses were minor, Ukraine was throwing everything and the kitchen sink at them (wasn't it something like 10-20 thousand artillery shells a day at one point?), and quite a few villages were lost, but they probably weren't bigger than the Ukranian losses, and probably smaller than the Ukranian losses percentage wise D1d2d3d29 (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not only in percentage terms, but also numerically, and several times over. They certainly suffered significant losses. Just as the Russian forces can be said to have suffered significant losses, the Ukrainian forces were literally massacred and few of them remained. Bortak42 (talk) 21:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Massacred? They certainly suffered massive losses given that they apparently only stopped the counteroffensive when the units assigned to it started running out of infantry, but the 47th brigade was able to take part in combat related to Avdiivka shortly after the counteroffensive was over so it couldn't have been that bad

I have no idea wheter Russian losses were lower or higher numerically, all we can say for certain right now is they were much lower in percentage terms since Russian forces were almost immeditaly able to start offensive operations (including some in the Robotyne axis) D1d2d3d29 (talk) 21:46, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article should reference the Institute for the Study of War less[edit]

I just did a ctrl+f and found 19 mentions of them in the article, not as a source, but straight up namedropped in the article

The reliance on ISW as a source when so many people in the community consider them a bad source is very worrying to me D1d2d3d29 (talk) 16:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ISW is not a reliable source of information, but a neoconservative propaganda mouthpiece. Bortak42 (talk) 17:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is not justified to say ISW is "namedropped", as it is precisely because of the nature of the source that its name typically ought to be mentioned in-line, to allow better or quicker distinction from newspapers (etc) as sources. Fewer citations of the ISW in this article would in my view be preferable, although the claim of it being a "bad source" seems insufficiently supported at present. Perhaps Wikipedia admin (rather than contributors) will let their view made known through the guidelines soon.--CRau080 (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Name of the article[edit]

The name "2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive" is quite weak. This should be called the " 2023 Kherson-Crimea-Zaporozhia-Donetsk counteroffensive" or "2023 Southeastern counteroffensive". The name should be similar to the previous ones, such as Kharkiv or Kherson, and not Ukrainian, because all of them are Ukrainian, and this concerns the regions affected by the hostilities. Bortak42 (talk) 9:40, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I know i may be beating a dead horse here but i found even more examples of the institute of the study for war being a comically bad source[edit]

https://x.com/Jonpy99/status/1790125238954471837

They can't even interpret their sources right D1d2d3d29 (talk) 15:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That X (formerly Twitter) post has been deleted, as I have just checked.--CRau080 (talk) 17:47, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It was a post by this user (Jompy (@Jonpy99) / X (twitter.com)), who created a fairly detailed count of vehicles visible in Russian storage bases in satellite pictures, ISW was quoting him and he pointed out that they misrapresented his data in a fairly hilarious fashion

Maybe you can try to DM him personally and ask about it if he deleted the post D1d2d3d29 (talk) 15:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]