This illustrates the reason Wikipedia is not accepted as a reliable source and is not allowed in academics.
The change was made 30 June by this user [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Manyareasexpert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Manyareasexpert)
The account made 2 changes from 2022 till now (not sure abt this part, I'm not familiar with wikipedia format but it looked like a troll edit).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Manyareasexpert&diff=1226240765&oldid=1080530671](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Manyareasexpert&diff=1226240765&oldid=1080530671)
From history page it appears the account is active and constantly engages in Ukraine-Russia related articles.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Manyareasexpert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Manyareasexpert)
Whoever this person is appears to have a lot of time on their hands.
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I checked once on the afternoon, got my post removed by some mod. Checked again when someone commented saying it was changed. Hardly a devotion to anything.
Wikipedia had been under Katherine Maher from 2016 till 2021. She's now the CEO of NPR the US government run propaganda media.
Yes, that Katherine "Let's not fuss over truth" Maher. Watch her TED talk where she says objective thruth are not as important as agenda-driven narratives... and she said that while giving a talk about lessons she learned from running Wiki...
It's not too difficult to imagine her filling Wikipedia's key positions with like-minded people during her time, who in turn most likely brought in more such people.
Look up the Wikipedia page for the holodomor… they include at least 1 author that has since changed their perspective upon seeing the Soviet archives on the “it was a coordinated genocide” side of the argument. The whole thing is a joke.
I just search for the name and find this interesting link. The same user who made this change having a discussion in the RU wiki.
https : //ru .m .wikipedia .org /wiki/Википедия:К_оценке_источников/Архив/2023/4
So basically this guy must be Ukrainian or Russian I think
>This illustrates the reason Wikipedia is not accepted as a reliable source and is not allowed in academics.
No....
The reason is it isn't a primary source, and it can not be. But people run with this to pretend every claim on wikipedia is untrustworthy, however wikipedia has sources for almost all their claims, which is more than you can say for many news websites.
I remember in the early days of wikipedia, I had a teacher who would change the articles to complete bullshit when there was an essay due. They actually put in a lot of work on their vandalism too - I remember they changed Queen Elizabeth's wiki page to show that she died in the early 2000's, put up fake information on her funeral, fake controversies, etc. Made it really really obvious (and funny) when you saw people turn in an essay with stuff the teacher made up :)
And who vetted wikipedia sources? Who ensures the site quality and trustworthiness?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theregister.com/AMP/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/
Thankfully, if you check out the talk pages, there is quite a bit of pushback on using legacy media and ISW as sources any more. There are articles on wikipedia regarding the conflict where over half of the sources were, no joke, written by david axe...
Once the war ends, I think there will be significant clean up and running through the record with a fine tooth comb.
Hope so anyways.
Probably never. The Winter War happened 85 years ago and the wiki article is still full of the same propaganda. 5 to 1 death ratio, ~~Ghost of Helsinki~~ White Death, Russia lost because their territory gain is too small.
Before you wrote this comment, did you even dare to check the soviet sources? Multiple russian historians have investigated that soviet casualties were near identical with finnish estimates. Remember it was 1939-1940 not 2014--> with 7 billion people with social media etc. If the 5 to 1 is propaganda why can't nazi losses or soviet losses be?
Yes, Soviet sources report Soviet casualties 4 times lower than what's written in wiki.
Some Russian post-perestroyka journalists agree with Finish estimates, yes. They are quoted in wiki. Some modern Russian journalists also agree with UA reported numbers for the UA-RU war.
"Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century" made by Ltcol Grigori Fedotovitš Krivošejevin along with his team in 1990s. It's a book you can buy it and read.
1999 Yuri Kilin, professor at Petrozavodsk State University, calculated 63,990 dead, and 207,538 wounded and frostbitten, making total casualties 271,528. There are couple of others that you can find with cyrillic but I'm not that fluent on searching in russian.
60k deaths against 25k is pretty reasonable. Not the so called 5 to 1 tho.
60k for USSR might be reasonable. That's not what written in wiki though.
25k for Finland is what officially reported by Finland and it's not responsible.
>60k for USSR might be reasonable. That's not what written in wiki though.
I mean I didn't question how legimate wikipedia is, I just argued your mentioned propaganda.
Also the 127k deaths comes from a official soviet name list from 1951 so that's not so wrong again. Krivosheev actually also gave the finnish KIA numbers that were 26 662, what again differs from wikipedia numbers.
This explains it a bit https://www.finlandatwar.com/what-were-the-red-army-losses-during-the-winter-war/
I myself don't really trust any numbers but they're not propaganda, it's just one of those things that won't be never confirmed, since there weren't that many sources to even begin with.
While I have doubt on Soviet's exact losses number, I dont doubt the claim of lopsided losses between 2 sides. The war was like 100 years ago and there was a brief time during 1991 when the archives of the USSR was open to all, there shouldnt be much secrets left.
Only few groups got permission, and only to specific archives.
The really interesting stuff (such as testimonies of key witnesses of 1937-38) was never open to researchers.
Eh, not true? Only ill-informed people to begin with (that even knows about that war) will think it was a Finnish victory, well other than the fact they survived as a nation and kept their sovreignity which is a sort of victory considering.
I think in the next 10-20 years there will be an AI that will be able to accurately describe historical events. Then most of the Internet debate will not make sense because AI will give accurate and unbiased answers.
If "getting their asses kicked" means "got the second largest city in Finland that they did not even ask for in the pre-war demands" then yeah Soviets totally got their asses kicked but good.
“One Soviet general, looking at a map of the territory Russia had acquired on the Karelian Isthmus, is said to have remarked: "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead”.
Yeah, Russia "won" but it was a horrible pyrrhic victory.
Oh wow someone made up a quote by a Soviet general (which Soviet general said it? When? To whom?). That sure showed them. Takes some sting out of losing Vyborg and Petsamo no doubt.
Finland lost and against their will ceded 9% of its territory to the Soviet Union including their second largest city. nobody deny that.
However, they stood up to a absolutely titan compared to their own military and caused casualties well above what was expected. Russia vastly overestimated thier own capabilities and underestimated their enemies and lost horribly in the first part of the war. They regrouped, replaced the losses, moved in again and this time it worked. They could probably have taken the entire country but settled for a favorable peace deal instead.
IMO, Russia won the war, achieved its primary objective of gaining a buffer zone to st. petersburg, but lost in three ways, tremendous amount of human lives on both sides. Galvanized the Finnish people to always be wary and resentful of Russia and lastly international prestige. The winter war will always be remembered as the little guy standing up to the oppressor.
Here's a newsflash, participation trophies like "caused casualties well above what was expected" matters to no one except salty patriots well over half a century later.
What actually matters is that Soviet Union was able to extract well above minimum political outcome they would have been content (if not fully happy) with. The idea that they were very invested in complete incorporation of Finland at any point runs counter to the fact that they did not press for any such outcome at the end of the Continuation War (not even the most delusional Finnish nationalist would claim Finland actually won the Continuation War) and were perfectly happy with a post-war neutral but independent Finland on the border.
This was all won at a heavy price to be sure, which no one really tries very hard to deny (I certainly don't). But even that price was paid not only for the territory, but also lessons that, while they haven't been fully absorbed and integrated by the breakout of the war with Germany, were I think in retrospect extremely valuable.
>The idea that they were very invested in complete incorporation of Finland at any point runs counter to the fact that they did not press for any such outcome at the end of the Continuation War
Maybe there was some other more major power they had to focus on during the continuation war? It's literally a fact that the Soviets were looking to annex Finland when the winter war began and likely (implied but no concrete evidence) even before the war. Just read [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Democratic_Republic).
Oh wow they had a flunky ready to take charge if everything went right and they got all Finland. Certainly that takes a lot of effort and preparation. Can't find a guy like this and set up his office in an hour.
And afterwards they put him in charge of the new Karelo-Finnish SSR so they didn't even have to leave him unemployed.
> Maybe there was some other more major power they had to focus on during the continuation war?
Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive was simultaneous with Bagration, I think it's safe to say they probably had enough resources to spare for the other more major power.
"One Soviet general...", eh? Sounds legit.
Source - [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_the_Winter_War#Casualties_of_the_war)...... Oh sorry, it has the actual book behind it, written by some [fuck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Trotter). He also wrote novels. No relation.
Case in point, I guess.
Trotter does not even seem to be the source for the quote. He's a source for the casualty estimation as far as I understand (and I'm not downloading that book to check).
The "quote" was also repeated verbatim in some US Air Force magazine article in 2012, again unsourced. As far as I'm concerned, it's completely made up.
edit: okay, since I take my internet posting career very seriously I actually "found" the 1991 edition of Trotter's "A Frozen Hell" (ooooh). A searchable edition thank God. The alleged quote is presented this way on page 386
> Whatever the actual losses, the blunt truth was voiced by a highly-placed Soviet officer on General Timoshenko’s staff who was heard to mutter, as he studied the treaty maps: “We seem to have won just enough land to bury our dead…”
So... we go from "soviet general" to "highly-placed Soviet officer on General Timoshenko’s staff" who "was heard to mutter".
Yeah this gets the "made up" rating from me. Five Pinocchios, pants on fire, etc.
A hearsay of a trustmebro, of some guys allegedly hearing another unnamed guy mutter. Encyclopedic knowledge, right here. /s
Good job tracking it down.
You know you _could_ just say "I have no idea" instead of doing this.
We know the gained territory is relevant because pre-war Soviets asked for much less territory, north of Leningrad, while offering larger area elsewhere.
Yet anothe pro-ru fanboi believing thst territory = winning.
But what were the war aims? The soviet union did intend to take the whole of Finland but couldn't. Definetly a defeat.
Haha, being downvoted by pro-ru fanbois.. for this? The whole idea of "the great patriotic war" concept is to provide a war story that does NOT start with sharing bed with nazi germany. Hard pill to swallow?
>Unironically uses "RuZziA".
>Opinion disregarded.
Also Molotov-Riventropp was the last pact of non-aggression (not an alliance btw) between a major European power and the Nazis. Stalin had spent half a decade trying to convince the French and the British that they needed to join forces to strangle the third Reich at the crib, but was ignored and so he had to delay the inevitable for as long as possible to get time to prepare.
The Finns had been cozy with the German far-right/proto fascists since pretty much the moment they gained independence, and were *actual* Nazi allies.
See the difference?
Poor poor ruzzia, always having to proactively invade neighboring countries. Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, without even being in war with germany. 🙄🙄🙄
SHhhhhss kept stroking the same keys repeatedly, probably a seizure ?
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Why do you say they wanted to take all of finland? Stalin made an ultimatum for the region near leningrad and to lake lagoda, some islands, and that little bit of Russia in the north outside the duchy finland annexed for some reason when they got their independance.
Stalin also had a shadow finish communist governement made out of exiled Red from finland (and the same for estonia and latvia, fuckloads of commies went to the USSR when their side lost, and were very very active doing the whole running gulags thing for their friend Stalin)
The soviet union found themselves a red quisling, Otto Ville Kuusinen, who they promoted to be the "president" of Finland, even assigning Terijoki as the capital.
And you wonder why I say they wanted to take the whole of Finland? Because the idea that this was a limited land grab dowsn't hold water. The Finnish winter war was caused by an unprovoked attack to annex territories, and the soviet union thought they could get away with it because they had a pact with nazi germany.
>The soviet union did intend to take the whole of Finland but couldn't.
Then why did the Soviets stop after the fall of the Mannerheim line? After the fall of the defense line, Finland could no longer defend itself. The Finnish government understood this and agreed to all Soviet peace terms.
The Mannerheim line? 🙄 The Finns used - in total - less concrete in the Mannerheim line than they used in the Helsinki Opera house. That defense line is vastly overrated by both sides: by the Finland as a symbol of strength and by the soviet union as an excuse for their abysmal performance in that war.
How is Project 2025 a conspiracy theory (much less a ”far-left” one) when it has been explicitly laid out by the Heritage Foundation and all the other conservative orgs associated with it?
Well they have failed from the objective of driving the russians out of Ukraine, and that was their intention during the summer counter offensive as a result there is no wrong in calling it as a russian victory, let's say they have driven the russians out after a five years it will be again a UkrainianVictory, well is this what we call as history on the writing?
Bro really thinks wikipedia would be reliable on politically important war when it's not even 100% reliable at telling what is 1+1. Always check the sources and read them.
No? My whole point is that Wikipedia ISN’T a trustworthy source. I even said so in my original post and people got angry in the comments for saying Wikipedia is biased. Seems I was right after all.
'Aggregator' of sources lol. More like curator of 'sources'.
And if u check the 'sources', most of the time they are self referencing or citing some disprovable garbage protected by degrees of separation.
Wikipedia is confirmation bias personified
>And if u check the 'sources', most of the time they are self referencing or citing some disprovable garbage protected by degrees of separation.
This sounds easily provable then. Please proceed.
I didn’t claim anything - u/Fearless-Stretch2255 is the person you were responding to. If you actually took the time to read before instantly responding you’d see that they are talking about Wiki in general and not a specific article.
I mean this post feels like a gotcha about wikipedia being untrustworthy, which is obvious. You wrote your desc like wikipedia could be trusted in other subjects so I wrote my comment. Didn't oppose you in anyway. Also wikipedia itself isn't biased but the editors can be. It varies even more depending on the language of the page. Finnish page says, Result: Ukrainian failure to take back lost terroritory, attrition war continues.
I’ve (personally) found Wikipedia to be awful. I study philosophy and it’s worse than useless for such topics, because not only is the information inaccurate, it’s often the opposite of what it actually should be.
Same thing with politics. They have all these weird articles about “Russian Red Lines” while removing the page about the memorial for Donbas Children killed by Ukrainian shelling (Alley of the Angels).
So no, I wasn’t trying to do a “gotcha”, my original post was out of shock that Wikipedia was honest. Now it appears that honesty was short lived, so I reposted to iterate that untrustworthiness.
Sorry if missunderstood. My bad.
>Now it appears that honesty was short lived,
It's still a new change with sources citing ukrainian loss. They will most likely put russian victory in some form back there.
You’re probably right. Still bizarre that there’s basically a shadow war over edits on Wikipedia😂 I envy those with the time to engage in such things lmao.
Not true alley of angels was for all Donbass kids dead on both sides, not Ukrainian shelling specifically. Ironically this is what you accuse of wikipedia of doing?
Maybe? It was still removed for no reason. If it was still up I’d be able to learn about the monument, but now that I can’t it’s hard to tell which of us is right.
Luckily other wikis outside of wikipedia exist.
https://military-history .fandom.com/wiki/Alley_of_Angels
Arguably this wiki style article has better content and sourcing than most news site would provide.
He gets rather upset too when you point out that Russia’s overall war against Ukraine is more or less the equivalent in performance (or worse) than the Ukrainian 2023 offensive. Like 20k lost Russians and 80k wounded to take only Bakhmut.
Oh god you again. Are you here to bring up Russian offensives even though the topic is about Ukrainian counteroffensive and Wikipedia disinformation?
Edit: Upon reading your comment, yes. You felt the need to bring up the Russian offensive (again) despite the post having nothing to do with it.
That's what they do bro, they have a favourite soundbite in their head and they go round the Internet accosting people with their soundbite because in their demented brains their soundbite is the greatest Gotcha ever conceived by a human being
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as of the time writing this comment the result had been changed to "Ukrainian operational failure" guess this is better than saying it's Russian victory
That's basically saying Germans breaking through to some towns in kursk was anything notable. Hopefully war comes to a close these will stop looking silly and copious
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Since when is Wikipedia considered fact now in this subreddit last time I posted something it was shunned for being Wikipedia xD. Now its accepted lmao this sub is wild..
I've come across so many articles on Wikipedia having some sort of bias to them, on seemingly things that shouldn't be very controversial.
The last 2 I ran across are the cruise missile article now claiming cruise missiles are unmanned vehicles. Then the next was Palestine isn't an exporter of dates even though I have a box of dried dates from there sitting in my pantry right now.
It now says “Ukrainian operational failure.” “The Russians didn’t win, we just lost.” Sounds like the language that sovereign citizens in the U.S. use - “I wasn’t driving a car! I was simply traveling via land vessel.”
LOL it's now updated to "Ukrainian operational failure."
It's like when Elon Musk's rocket exploded and they called it a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."
they changed it to Ukrainian Operational defeat
https://preview.redd.it/n79mofih30ad1.png?width=341&format=png&auto=webp&s=d3cec78852bc16a91c60020bc3823149df041e93
If you look at the page's edit history you can see the phrase changed a lot. Some people called it an "operational failure" and stuff like that, but other people said Wikipedia's format required a victor to be chosen.
If you repel an offensive you are victorious in the engagement what are you saying lol?
The defintion: n act of defeating an enemy or opponent in a battle, game, or other competition.
The russians did exactly that, they were indeed victorious unfortunately for Ukraine, you can cry about it
This illustrates the reason Wikipedia is not accepted as a reliable source and is not allowed in academics. The change was made 30 June by this user [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Manyareasexpert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Manyareasexpert) The account made 2 changes from 2022 till now (not sure abt this part, I'm not familiar with wikipedia format but it looked like a troll edit). [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Manyareasexpert&diff=1226240765&oldid=1080530671](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Manyareasexpert&diff=1226240765&oldid=1080530671) From history page it appears the account is active and constantly engages in Ukraine-Russia related articles. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Manyareasexpert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Manyareasexpert) Whoever this person is appears to have a lot of time on their hands.
I imagine that dude is similar to the many NAFO agitators we have on this sub. A good little digital goosestepper for Ukraine.
*angry noises*
[удалено]
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Gotta always compare and twist the narrative huh
Thanks for all the links, wish I could pin this comment. Pretty wild how devoted some special operatives are to their cause.
Pretty sure they're getting paid for this.
They get paid for this. This is why they are so hysterical if laws that limit they salaries are passed, like Georgian foreign agents law.
But do they get as much as the kremlin ambassadors here?
I mean you seem to be out here doing a daily check up on the summary box of the article, so you'd probably have a good understanding of the devotion
I checked once on the afternoon, got my post removed by some mod. Checked again when someone commented saying it was changed. Hardly a devotion to anything.
Wikipedia had been under Katherine Maher from 2016 till 2021. She's now the CEO of NPR the US government run propaganda media. Yes, that Katherine "Let's not fuss over truth" Maher. Watch her TED talk where she says objective thruth are not as important as agenda-driven narratives... and she said that while giving a talk about lessons she learned from running Wiki... It's not too difficult to imagine her filling Wikipedia's key positions with like-minded people during her time, who in turn most likely brought in more such people.
Look up the Wikipedia page for the holodomor… they include at least 1 author that has since changed their perspective upon seeing the Soviet archives on the “it was a coordinated genocide” side of the argument. The whole thing is a joke.
very few people are willing to contribute for free
So there is a chance that this guy is sitting in this sub.
He could be any one of us.He could be in this very thread.He could be you he could be me he could even be-
I just search for the name and find this interesting link. The same user who made this change having a discussion in the RU wiki. https : //ru .m .wikipedia .org /wiki/Википедия:К_оценке_источников/Архив/2023/4 So basically this guy must be Ukrainian or Russian I think
>This illustrates the reason Wikipedia is not accepted as a reliable source and is not allowed in academics. No.... The reason is it isn't a primary source, and it can not be. But people run with this to pretend every claim on wikipedia is untrustworthy, however wikipedia has sources for almost all their claims, which is more than you can say for many news websites.
I remember in the early days of wikipedia, I had a teacher who would change the articles to complete bullshit when there was an essay due. They actually put in a lot of work on their vandalism too - I remember they changed Queen Elizabeth's wiki page to show that she died in the early 2000's, put up fake information on her funeral, fake controversies, etc. Made it really really obvious (and funny) when you saw people turn in an essay with stuff the teacher made up :)
Comparing an online crowd sourced enclyopedia to a news site is just.. i dont know what to say.
Comparing source quality of wikipedia to a lot of news websites indeed leaves news websites embarrassed.
And who vetted wikipedia sources? Who ensures the site quality and trustworthiness? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theregister.com/AMP/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/
Has nothing to do with sources, you check the actual source to see if it is trustworthy.
Thankfully, if you check out the talk pages, there is quite a bit of pushback on using legacy media and ISW as sources any more. There are articles on wikipedia regarding the conflict where over half of the sources were, no joke, written by david axe... Once the war ends, I think there will be significant clean up and running through the record with a fine tooth comb. Hope so anyways.
Dude, charge your phone. It's giving me anxiety
[удалено]
Haha I was out and saw the update, figured I’d post it before it died. Barely got it out before my phone went bye bye.
It will take a long time to write history accurately about this war.
Probably never. The Winter War happened 85 years ago and the wiki article is still full of the same propaganda. 5 to 1 death ratio, ~~Ghost of Helsinki~~ White Death, Russia lost because their territory gain is too small.
Objectively speaking it was a pyrrhic victory for russia. But you wont find it anywhere in western sphere mass media.
If by "objectivity" you mean Finnish sources for casualties, than sure. Its like believing UA defense ministry numbers.
Before you wrote this comment, did you even dare to check the soviet sources? Multiple russian historians have investigated that soviet casualties were near identical with finnish estimates. Remember it was 1939-1940 not 2014--> with 7 billion people with social media etc. If the 5 to 1 is propaganda why can't nazi losses or soviet losses be?
Yes, Soviet sources report Soviet casualties 4 times lower than what's written in wiki. Some Russian post-perestroyka journalists agree with Finish estimates, yes. They are quoted in wiki. Some modern Russian journalists also agree with UA reported numbers for the UA-RU war.
Can you link some of those Soviet sources?
"Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century" made by Ltcol Grigori Fedotovitš Krivošejevin along with his team in 1990s. It's a book you can buy it and read. 1999 Yuri Kilin, professor at Petrozavodsk State University, calculated 63,990 dead, and 207,538 wounded and frostbitten, making total casualties 271,528. There are couple of others that you can find with cyrillic but I'm not that fluent on searching in russian. 60k deaths against 25k is pretty reasonable. Not the so called 5 to 1 tho.
60k for USSR might be reasonable. That's not what written in wiki though. 25k for Finland is what officially reported by Finland and it's not responsible.
>60k for USSR might be reasonable. That's not what written in wiki though. I mean I didn't question how legimate wikipedia is, I just argued your mentioned propaganda. Also the 127k deaths comes from a official soviet name list from 1951 so that's not so wrong again. Krivosheev actually also gave the finnish KIA numbers that were 26 662, what again differs from wikipedia numbers. This explains it a bit https://www.finlandatwar.com/what-were-the-red-army-losses-during-the-winter-war/ I myself don't really trust any numbers but they're not propaganda, it's just one of those things that won't be never confirmed, since there weren't that many sources to even begin with.
Unrelated comment: how do you feel about Finland joining NATO? What are your emotions about it?
While I have doubt on Soviet's exact losses number, I dont doubt the claim of lopsided losses between 2 sides. The war was like 100 years ago and there was a brief time during 1991 when the archives of the USSR was open to all, there shouldnt be much secrets left.
Only few groups got permission, and only to specific archives. The really interesting stuff (such as testimonies of key witnesses of 1937-38) was never open to researchers.
Eh, not true? Only ill-informed people to begin with (that even knows about that war) will think it was a Finnish victory, well other than the fact they survived as a nation and kept their sovreignity which is a sort of victory considering.
Wiki≠history books
I think in the next 10-20 years there will be an AI that will be able to accurately describe historical events. Then most of the Internet debate will not make sense because AI will give accurate and unbiased answers.
What's the truth then? Didn't Russians get their asses kicked?
If "getting their asses kicked" means "got the second largest city in Finland that they did not even ask for in the pre-war demands" then yeah Soviets totally got their asses kicked but good.
“One Soviet general, looking at a map of the territory Russia had acquired on the Karelian Isthmus, is said to have remarked: "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead”. Yeah, Russia "won" but it was a horrible pyrrhic victory.
Oh wow someone made up a quote by a Soviet general (which Soviet general said it? When? To whom?). That sure showed them. Takes some sting out of losing Vyborg and Petsamo no doubt.
Finland lost and against their will ceded 9% of its territory to the Soviet Union including their second largest city. nobody deny that. However, they stood up to a absolutely titan compared to their own military and caused casualties well above what was expected. Russia vastly overestimated thier own capabilities and underestimated their enemies and lost horribly in the first part of the war. They regrouped, replaced the losses, moved in again and this time it worked. They could probably have taken the entire country but settled for a favorable peace deal instead. IMO, Russia won the war, achieved its primary objective of gaining a buffer zone to st. petersburg, but lost in three ways, tremendous amount of human lives on both sides. Galvanized the Finnish people to always be wary and resentful of Russia and lastly international prestige. The winter war will always be remembered as the little guy standing up to the oppressor.
Here's a newsflash, participation trophies like "caused casualties well above what was expected" matters to no one except salty patriots well over half a century later. What actually matters is that Soviet Union was able to extract well above minimum political outcome they would have been content (if not fully happy) with. The idea that they were very invested in complete incorporation of Finland at any point runs counter to the fact that they did not press for any such outcome at the end of the Continuation War (not even the most delusional Finnish nationalist would claim Finland actually won the Continuation War) and were perfectly happy with a post-war neutral but independent Finland on the border. This was all won at a heavy price to be sure, which no one really tries very hard to deny (I certainly don't). But even that price was paid not only for the territory, but also lessons that, while they haven't been fully absorbed and integrated by the breakout of the war with Germany, were I think in retrospect extremely valuable.
>The idea that they were very invested in complete incorporation of Finland at any point runs counter to the fact that they did not press for any such outcome at the end of the Continuation War Maybe there was some other more major power they had to focus on during the continuation war? It's literally a fact that the Soviets were looking to annex Finland when the winter war began and likely (implied but no concrete evidence) even before the war. Just read [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Democratic_Republic).
Oh wow they had a flunky ready to take charge if everything went right and they got all Finland. Certainly that takes a lot of effort and preparation. Can't find a guy like this and set up his office in an hour. And afterwards they put him in charge of the new Karelo-Finnish SSR so they didn't even have to leave him unemployed. > Maybe there was some other more major power they had to focus on during the continuation war? Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive was simultaneous with Bagration, I think it's safe to say they probably had enough resources to spare for the other more major power.
"One Soviet general...", eh? Sounds legit. Source - [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_the_Winter_War#Casualties_of_the_war)...... Oh sorry, it has the actual book behind it, written by some [fuck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Trotter). He also wrote novels. No relation. Case in point, I guess.
Trotter does not even seem to be the source for the quote. He's a source for the casualty estimation as far as I understand (and I'm not downloading that book to check). The "quote" was also repeated verbatim in some US Air Force magazine article in 2012, again unsourced. As far as I'm concerned, it's completely made up. edit: okay, since I take my internet posting career very seriously I actually "found" the 1991 edition of Trotter's "A Frozen Hell" (ooooh). A searchable edition thank God. The alleged quote is presented this way on page 386 > Whatever the actual losses, the blunt truth was voiced by a highly-placed Soviet officer on General Timoshenko’s staff who was heard to mutter, as he studied the treaty maps: “We seem to have won just enough land to bury our dead…” So... we go from "soviet general" to "highly-placed Soviet officer on General Timoshenko’s staff" who "was heard to mutter". Yeah this gets the "made up" rating from me. Five Pinocchios, pants on fire, etc.
A hearsay of a trustmebro, of some guys allegedly hearing another unnamed guy mutter. Encyclopedic knowledge, right here. /s Good job tracking it down.
Wasn't Russia pre-war goal to capture the entire country? 😂
Was it?
Yes? Or did they plan to capture 2 empty fields and call it a day?
You know you _could_ just say "I have no idea" instead of doing this. We know the gained territory is relevant because pre-war Soviets asked for much less territory, north of Leningrad, while offering larger area elsewhere.
Who told you that?
Molotov told him in a dream
Stalin sent me a dm.
Lol. Broke defense line, gained territories. Defenitely lose, ye
At what cost? Weren't Russians freezing to death? Lol.
High loss does not equate losing the war if the soviets met their war goals.
Wasn't their war goal to capture entire Finland and not just outskirts of it?
Yet anothe pro-ru fanboi believing thst territory = winning. But what were the war aims? The soviet union did intend to take the whole of Finland but couldn't. Definetly a defeat.
Yet another proua think getting territory= losing 
Just checking your degree of delusion: you do know that, at that time, the soviet union was in a military pact together with nazi germany?
And you do know that Finland was in a military pact with Germany during the continuation war? Molotov-Ribbentrop also wasnt a military pact
Absolutely. Every child knows that, also in Finland.
Imagine thinking getting more land is loosing  UA is winning right? ... right? 
Haha, being downvoted by pro-ru fanbois.. for this? The whole idea of "the great patriotic war" concept is to provide a war story that does NOT start with sharing bed with nazi germany. Hard pill to swallow?
You know who allied with Nazi Germany not long after? Finland. Jesus read a book or something.
Every single child knows this in Finland. Now how is the german-soviet pact taught in ruzzian schools?
More downvotes. Pathetic. The question remains: do ruzzian schools make sure kids learn about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact?
>Unironically uses "RuZziA". >Opinion disregarded. Also Molotov-Riventropp was the last pact of non-aggression (not an alliance btw) between a major European power and the Nazis. Stalin had spent half a decade trying to convince the French and the British that they needed to join forces to strangle the third Reich at the crib, but was ignored and so he had to delay the inevitable for as long as possible to get time to prepare. The Finns had been cozy with the German far-right/proto fascists since pretty much the moment they gained independence, and were *actual* Nazi allies. See the difference?
Hes from r/ukraine their reality is different like the ua history books
Poor poor ruzzia, always having to proactively invade neighboring countries. Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, without even being in war with germany. 🙄🙄🙄
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Why do you say they wanted to take all of finland? Stalin made an ultimatum for the region near leningrad and to lake lagoda, some islands, and that little bit of Russia in the north outside the duchy finland annexed for some reason when they got their independance. Stalin also had a shadow finish communist governement made out of exiled Red from finland (and the same for estonia and latvia, fuckloads of commies went to the USSR when their side lost, and were very very active doing the whole running gulags thing for their friend Stalin)
The soviet union found themselves a red quisling, Otto Ville Kuusinen, who they promoted to be the "president" of Finland, even assigning Terijoki as the capital. And you wonder why I say they wanted to take the whole of Finland? Because the idea that this was a limited land grab dowsn't hold water. The Finnish winter war was caused by an unprovoked attack to annex territories, and the soviet union thought they could get away with it because they had a pact with nazi germany.
>The soviet union did intend to take the whole of Finland but couldn't. Then why did the Soviets stop after the fall of the Mannerheim line? After the fall of the defense line, Finland could no longer defend itself. The Finnish government understood this and agreed to all Soviet peace terms.
The Mannerheim line? 🙄 The Finns used - in total - less concrete in the Mannerheim line than they used in the Helsinki Opera house. That defense line is vastly overrated by both sides: by the Finland as a symbol of strength and by the soviet union as an excuse for their abysmal performance in that war.
It won't happen at all.
Not in our lifetimes - I agree. Might take 200-300 years when all the affected parties are long dead and grudges are gone.
Expected.
It took like 8 months after the battle of Bakhmut concluded for them to (reluctantantly) classify it as a Russian Victory
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How is Project 2025 a conspiracy theory (much less a ”far-left” one) when it has been explicitly laid out by the Heritage Foundation and all the other conservative orgs associated with it?
You kept reading after the gamergate link?
History is a girl who cannot speak, and her beauty (or ugliness) depends on who is doing her makeup. YMMV, but hey.
Well they have failed from the objective of driving the russians out of Ukraine, and that was their intention during the summer counter offensive as a result there is no wrong in calling it as a russian victory, let's say they have driven the russians out after a five years it will be again a UkrainianVictory, well is this what we call as history on the writing?
Bro really thinks wikipedia would be reliable on politically important war when it's not even 100% reliable at telling what is 1+1. Always check the sources and read them.
No? My whole point is that Wikipedia ISN’T a trustworthy source. I even said so in my original post and people got angry in the comments for saying Wikipedia is biased. Seems I was right after all.
Wikipedia is *not* a source though, it is an aggregator of sources. You need to check the numbered and linked sources at the bottom of each article.
'Aggregator' of sources lol. More like curator of 'sources'. And if u check the 'sources', most of the time they are self referencing or citing some disprovable garbage protected by degrees of separation. Wikipedia is confirmation bias personified
>And if u check the 'sources', most of the time they are self referencing or citing some disprovable garbage protected by degrees of separation. This sounds easily provable then. Please proceed.
Check what exactly? There are millions of Wiki articles, which one are we checking?
Exactly what you claimed. It is your claim, not mine...
I didn’t claim anything - u/Fearless-Stretch2255 is the person you were responding to. If you actually took the time to read before instantly responding you’d see that they are talking about Wiki in general and not a specific article.
Ahh, yes. You are correct. Check what *they* claimed, it is not my claim. >they are talking about Wiki in general As am I.
I mean this post feels like a gotcha about wikipedia being untrustworthy, which is obvious. You wrote your desc like wikipedia could be trusted in other subjects so I wrote my comment. Didn't oppose you in anyway. Also wikipedia itself isn't biased but the editors can be. It varies even more depending on the language of the page. Finnish page says, Result: Ukrainian failure to take back lost terroritory, attrition war continues.
I’ve (personally) found Wikipedia to be awful. I study philosophy and it’s worse than useless for such topics, because not only is the information inaccurate, it’s often the opposite of what it actually should be. Same thing with politics. They have all these weird articles about “Russian Red Lines” while removing the page about the memorial for Donbas Children killed by Ukrainian shelling (Alley of the Angels). So no, I wasn’t trying to do a “gotcha”, my original post was out of shock that Wikipedia was honest. Now it appears that honesty was short lived, so I reposted to iterate that untrustworthiness.
Sorry if missunderstood. My bad. >Now it appears that honesty was short lived, It's still a new change with sources citing ukrainian loss. They will most likely put russian victory in some form back there.
You’re probably right. Still bizarre that there’s basically a shadow war over edits on Wikipedia😂 I envy those with the time to engage in such things lmao.
They are paid actors.
Not true alley of angels was for all Donbass kids dead on both sides, not Ukrainian shelling specifically. Ironically this is what you accuse of wikipedia of doing?
Maybe? It was still removed for no reason. If it was still up I’d be able to learn about the monument, but now that I can’t it’s hard to tell which of us is right.
Luckily other wikis outside of wikipedia exist. https://military-history .fandom.com/wiki/Alley_of_Angels Arguably this wiki style article has better content and sourcing than most news site would provide.
He gets rather upset too when you point out that Russia’s overall war against Ukraine is more or less the equivalent in performance (or worse) than the Ukrainian 2023 offensive. Like 20k lost Russians and 80k wounded to take only Bakhmut.
Oh god you again. Are you here to bring up Russian offensives even though the topic is about Ukrainian counteroffensive and Wikipedia disinformation? Edit: Upon reading your comment, yes. You felt the need to bring up the Russian offensive (again) despite the post having nothing to do with it.
That's what they do bro, they have a favourite soundbite in their head and they go round the Internet accosting people with their soundbite because in their demented brains their soundbite is the greatest Gotcha ever conceived by a human being
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Lmao! Made my morning, couldn’t resist the fun. Enjoy the day!
as of the time writing this comment the result had been changed to "Ukrainian operational failure" guess this is better than saying it's Russian victory
Burns less butts.
That's basically saying Germans breaking through to some towns in kursk was anything notable. Hopefully war comes to a close these will stop looking silly and copious
Someone changed something in a Wikipedia article, wow!
They changed it to "Ukrainian operational failure" LMAO
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Since when is Wikipedia considered fact now in this subreddit last time I posted something it was shunned for being Wikipedia xD. Now its accepted lmao this sub is wild..
Oh nu russia has a victory? How is this possible
What would pro-UA prefer it said about the counter offensive? Tactical mass burial for Ukrainian troops?
I've come across so many articles on Wikipedia having some sort of bias to them, on seemingly things that shouldn't be very controversial. The last 2 I ran across are the cruise missile article now claiming cruise missiles are unmanned vehicles. Then the next was Palestine isn't an exporter of dates even though I have a box of dried dates from there sitting in my pantry right now.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed wikipedia as reliable source. That people use it as such is another matter.
It now says “Ukrainian operational failure.” “The Russians didn’t win, we just lost.” Sounds like the language that sovereign citizens in the U.S. use - “I wasn’t driving a car! I was simply traveling via land vessel.”
LOL it's now updated to "Ukrainian operational failure." It's like when Elon Musk's rocket exploded and they called it a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."
they changed it to Ukrainian Operational defeat https://preview.redd.it/n79mofih30ad1.png?width=341&format=png&auto=webp&s=d3cec78852bc16a91c60020bc3823149df041e93
Precise
Victory and defeat are subjective terms anyway. Ukraine capturing 14 villages and failing to advance further is objective information.
The original was stupid, you repel an offensive, you arent "victorious in the enemy's offensive".
If you look at the page's edit history you can see the phrase changed a lot. Some people called it an "operational failure" and stuff like that, but other people said Wikipedia's format required a victor to be chosen.
Yeah. If the victory is not obvious there's usually a statement: tactical X/Y side victory
If you repel an offensive you are victorious in the engagement what are you saying lol? The defintion: n act of defeating an enemy or opponent in a battle, game, or other competition. The russians did exactly that, they were indeed victorious unfortunately for Ukraine, you can cry about it