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For reference, here’s a list of recent assassinations in or related to Ukraine. Most or all of these have been linked to the Russian Federation or Russian-led militants, and potentially belong in this list.
Volodymyr Ivanovych Rybak, Horlivka city councillor, 2014-04-17 to 19, Horlivka, Ukraine, DNR militants with involvement of Igor Bezler, Igor Girkin, Viacheslav Ponomarev
Alexander Zakharchenko (and one bodyguard), head of Donetsk People's Republic, 2018-08-31, Donetsk, Ukraine, variously attributed to his own bodyguards, Donetsk People's Republic, Russian special services, Ukrainian forces
As it stands, this article is a bit unwieldy. I feel like combining assassinations from both the Soviet and modern Russian Federation into one list is contributing to this problem. What do people think about dividing it up into "List of Soviet Assassinations" and "List of Russian Federation Assassinations"? JarlJberk (talk) 19:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It would make more sense, at least in the current state of the article, because it is strange including people like anti-Bolshevists and Nicholas II in a list of people assassinated by the Soviet Union and Russia. At first these were Russians with a Russian state assassinated by unrecognized authorities at the time. Also the Soviet Union did not exist until end of 1922. Either split (it can simply be list of Russian assassinations with scope defined as being after 1991) or change the wording somehow. Mellk (talk) 01:48, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. There are 12 Soviet successor states, and creating lists and articles that equate the RF’s identity with the USSR’s is non-WP:neutral point of view. Pre-1922 and post-1992 items belong in one “Russia” list, or perhaps even two separate ones. —MichaelZ.17:15, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Even if we included Bolshevik assassinations (or just civil war killings in general) from 1917 to 1922 in "list of Russian assassinations" as those "assassinated by Russia", it would still look strange. Mellk (talk) 17:39, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm somewhat questioning whether or not we can count executions as assassinations (e.g Nick II), due to the fact that might open a Pandora's box of putting every notable individual executed by the Soviet Union for political purposes on this list but that feels like me being pedantic and I'm not attached to it.
I agree post '91-92 items should constitute their own list, especially since this list is long enough, and the way things are going politically within the RF we might have to expand on it soon. However I do think we can qualify assassinations made by the Cheka and more widely Bolsheviks pre-dating the formal establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922 in the same list as assassinations between 1922 and 1992, as they alone are not enough to constitute their own list, and they are in my opinion related to the wider matter of assassinations in the Soviet Union. To clarify the difference we can put them in two different tables, which might also help with the unwieldiness of the article. JarlJberk (talk) 19:11, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Which items belong in the list or not is for a separate discussion. (The tsar’s family was an extrajudicial political murder of a prominent personage, so it may well belong.)
No, I don’t agree that pre-1922 assassinations by the Russian SFSR belong in the list for the USSR, because its predecessor and successor states have separate state identities. Neither Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Transcaucasia, Ukraine, nor the others should be treated as if they are the USSR. —MichaelZ.00:54, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am jumping in late. There is a good list of assassinations in Boris Volodarsky's books "ASSASSINS" and "THE KGB's POISON FACTORY". The list goes from Fanny Kaplan in 1918 to 3 Russian journalists shot dead in the Central African Republic in 2018. The book is copyrighted 2019 so we have a 4-year gap. Additionally, other books on the KGB in my library usually include death lists. The present list on WP is woefully short.
So, back to the original point of discussion in this thread: We have the Bolshevik coup taking power in Russia 1917-1922, Soviet Union created 1922 and growing until it collapsed in 1991, post-Soviet Union 1991 returns to Russia up to today. Muddy the water with the numerous names of the agencies doing the killing - Cheka to FSB plus the satellite nations doing USSR dirty work.
SO, we can begin in 1917 and continue to today, but what is the title of the page on WP going to be? 1917-1922 was not Soviet and now we are back to Russia after 70+ years of Soviet. As a researcher what do I type in on my search engine?
Suggestions: Create a list for 1917-1922, a list for Soviet Union, and a list for Russian Federation with prominent links to each other at the top of the page. As a researcher that clears it for me. That tells me the "men in Moscow" in each government are doing the decision making.
NOTE: we have thousands of victims to process using the definition of 'assassination'. In my research each person has an interesting story to tell and being on the list tells me a lot about the person(s) approving/carrying out the killing. Why so many in Russia and none in Switzerland? Looking forward to the discussion. Michael Mahoney Mahonemo (talk) 16:20, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
👍 That strikes me a good way to treat a lot of state-related subjects that overlap the USSR, and especially in this case where the criterion is by the government of, and not just in the country. So the organization of list articles accommodates extending the set of lists to include assassinations by other predecessor and successor states, and still interlinking them all appropriately. —MichaelZ.20:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Michael Z: I agree. Today I was researching assassinations by Soviet officers in the USA, Austria, and France during the 1920s. All attributed orders from the leaders in Moscow. So we have "by the government" outside the country. There are a multitude of such cases and continue to be. It is not a difficult task once someone begins the list as has been done. The list itself makes sense to researchers and provides fodder for further research. Mahonemo (talk) 03:23, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would say do not split. There are two arguments for keeping this as a single list: (a) modern Russia is officially (even in the UN) a successor of the USSR, but not other states, and (b) the organizations currently perpetrating the murders (FSB and GRU) officially consider themselves to be successors of the corresponding Soviet organizations (i.e. VChK and Soviet GRU). Saying that, the list is extremely incomplete. It must include some notable cases that may be controversial, but have been described as targeted murders in at least some books by historians. I mean people like Lenin, Stalin, possibly Maxim Gorky, etc. Some other inclusions are unsourced. My very best wishes (talk) 17:25, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A) That is not true. There are 12 Soviet successor states that inherited USSR’s treaty rights and obligations, assets, and organizations on their own territories. The Belarusian KGB and Ukrainian SBU, for example, are also KGB successors.
The Russian Federation is often considered a continuator of the USSR, but if “considers itself” is significant then you should know that this is disputed by Ukraine, which considers itself a shared continuator as well.
Ukraine and Belarus had seats in the UN from 1945. The Russian Federation took one January 31, 1991, days after the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The situation is not simple, and glib statements about things that “everybody knows that . . .” are not clearly helpful to make decisions like this. —MichaelZ.21:26, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Yes, I know all of that. Speaking on UN, Russia is a permanent member of United Nations Security Council, because UN considers it (maybe wrongly) as a successor of USSR, unlike other "former republics". Russia did not even officially reapplied for the UN membership if I am not mistaken. Saying that, splitting the page is a reasonable option. My very best wishes (talk) 15:34, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
None of those problems is new; none is caused by splitting. But the current lead says “by governments of the Soviet Union and Russian Federation,” so I don’t think they are really problems. —MichaelZ.17:25, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Many people in the list were just randomly killed by regular military forces at war, rather than specifically targeted in assassinations. Also, many sources (like [2]) say it is actually unknown who killed them. They should be excluded from the list. Besides, we can not trust claims like "Russian MoD said they killed X,Y,Z." We need a 3rd party RS, given the enormous amount of misinformation produced by Russian MoD. My very best wishes (talk) 17:52, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the general consensus here is to split so I'll do that. There doesn't seem to be a solid argument against. Also the issue above vis a vis reliability still stands, both lists need clean up even besides the split. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:55, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I had to take a long break from editing but I want you to know the fact this discussion has finally reached some sort of conclusion more than a year after I brought up the issue and has been discussed pretty consistently since is somehow incredibly gratifying.
Can someone who knows how Wikipedia's tables fix whatever is wrong with the date column? Sorting by date doesn't work, I think the dates are formatted incorrectly. VinceAdult (talk) 20:23, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Second table should be fixed. Sorting is working, but certain empty cells are missing. Now seems to be fixed. Someone included questionable content and broke the table. My very best wishes (talk) 02:29, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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