Talk:Denis Pushilin

NPOV dispute

The article depicts (from Ukrainian and American sources) Pushilin in an absolutely negative light (MMM member - in the 90ies, where he was mostly underage (!) and Putin's agent, for which there is no proof). Hence I added the NPOV dispute tag. Although he seems to be a member of the controversial MMM company, this is apparently not the same fraudulent MMM pyramid from the 90ies, which is defunct since 1997 (when Pushilin was 16). I read there was a political party founded by MMM members, where Pushilin is (or was) a member. I think information about his education and career is more appropriate in such a WP article.--Mdphddr (talk) 18:18, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

You should get your facts straight. The Financial Times is an international newspaper based in England, not USA.

The more recent MMM companies are all linked to Sergei Mavrodi, and are all Ponzi schemes.

As for a blog promoting MMM - it is not a reliable source.--Toddy1 (talk) 18:46, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, sorry, Financial Times is based in England, indeed. In my first statement I paid more attention to the Washington post article. And also more recent MMM groups are indeed linked to Mavrodi and probably Ponzi shemes. However, the article gives an impression that Pushilin is liable for the MMM crimes, "which has cost its customers millions of dollars" and this is apparently not the case. In the beginning of the 90ies, even public television stations promoted MMM commercials until investigation by the prosecution in 1994. Anyway, instead of giving an neutral overview of Pushilins life (education, career, current positions, the separatist movement, also some criticism), the article just depicts him, as I already mentioned, in a very negative light.

The link I presented is called "Autobiography of Denis Pushilin" and has at least some information about his education, that is the reason why I have chosen it (and because it is used in other Wikipedias as a source), not because it promotes MMM.--Mdphddr (talk) 19:08, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

He was apparently much older than 16 when working at MMM. Here are his youtube videos from MMM (old and new) also he does not deny his involvement as I read in the articles today saying that "pyramid schemes were legal in Russia at the time": https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=денис+пушилин+ммм — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.59.103.238 (talk) 22:24, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Education? Career? This guy has none of those. Silvio1973 (talk) 19:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

References

Source reliability

With respect to people who started this article, I have one remark. Maybe the text on the company MMM might be true, but the following sentence:

"Until he suddenly appeared as a leader of the separatists, Pushilin was virtually unknown in the region, giving rise to speculation that like most of the separatist leaders he is an agent of Putin's government.[3]"

is highly biased. The source comes from the mainstream media news webpage, where no further firm proofs of any of these claims is mentioned. Therefore the given link is a not a source which can be used in encyclopedic context. I will delete the aforesaid sentence from the article, if anyone has firmer proofs please submit links and/or comments before reverting. 2A00:C440:20:F73:E077:A78E:1601:F5F0 (talk) 14:22, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

There seems to be a disconnect between your comments on the talk page, and the article. Is it possible that you intended your comments for a different article talk page?--Toddy1 (talk) 19:43, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Ethnic Discrimination

In any country with diffenent ethnics and languages, it is absolutely unnormal that a given name is "translated". It is therefore unsensible and "svidomost" POV to "translate" the name into Ukrainian. It would be crazy to call Vladimir Putin "Volodimir Putin", equally Mr. Pushilin does not have two names, a Russian and an Ukrainian. This only reflects fanaticism of Ukrainian right wing extremism.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.231.145.162 (talk) 18:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

"ukrainian politician activist"

Denis Pushilin is considered a terrorist by the Ukrainian State which is the only legitimate power in the country, therefore calling him an "politician" is either a big euphemism, at worse simply wrong. Also, calling "politicians" the criminals who are at the head of those terrorist organizations responsible for the deaths of thousands of people is giving legitimacy to them and Wikipedia is not the place for this kind of propaganda. The elections in those territories were forbidden to international observers, there is no political life in those occupied territories, no political opposition of course, nor is there any democracy so the names of "politicians", "republic", etc are used in vain here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thibaud Ochem (talk • contribs) 16:25, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

This is a biography of a living person. This is also an article talk page, not a soapbox. Do not use either the article (as you did here, here, and here), or this talk page to push your WP:POV --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:21, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Irina. Basically we have quite strong-worder WP:BLP policy that prevents us from naming somebody a criminal (and terrorism is quite a serious crime) if there were no court decision or similar official ruling or if there were any doubt in fairness of this court (e.g. we would not name Oleg Sentsov a terrorist because the fairness and validity of the court decisions are doubtful). Currently in the article there are no reference to Pushilin been sentenced in absentia or put intoan international list of terrorists, etc. The synthesis that the military operation in Eastern Ukraine is named Anti-Terrorist, so every person associated with the other side should be labelled as a terrorist, just does not fly especially for biography of living persons. Said that if you have any reference that Ukraine officially pronounced Pushilin a terrorist, then this information should probably go to the lead. E.g. "Pushilin is a political activist, who was put on the Interpol terrorist list" [ref]. Until we have such sources he is just a political activist. Please just take into account WP:ARBEE, the arbitration committee decision that put all Eastern Europe articles under discretionary sanctionsAlex Bakharev (talk) 01:35, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

What I've encountered regarding the use of 'terrorist' for Pushilin is used in the context of his attachment (high level though it may be) to DPR's being defined as a terrorist organisation by the Ukrainian government. While the Ukrainian press may be following this line (and other publications around the world attributing the term to the Ukrainian government), I haven't seen any official lists where he, personally, has been named a terrorist other than by association. As you and I both know, other language wikis don't all take Wikipedia policies as seriously as does English language Wikipedia. We're not using the term 'terrorist' on any articles surrounding events in Ukraine in any context other than qualifying that Ukraine is using the term, therefore I'm not particularly anxious, nor do I have the inclination, to research this issue in various Ukrainian documentation. My own take is that it's just plain WP:POINTy. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:38, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes but as an encyclopedia article there is also an obligation to truth. Pushilin might see himself as a politician, but he's never held office anywhere, nor belonged to a government. Terrorist is an objectively correct term as a civilian who does not represent any state or government who deploys political violence for political ends. Furthermore as a representative of an organization involved in continued homicide theft and other violations of ukranian law, Criminal is also an accurate and unbiased descriptor for his behavior. Duckmonster (talk) 09:20, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Metadata

https://www.axios.com/telegram-ukraine-russia-separatists-evacuation-23c418ef-cd60-4ab7-afdf-6f3260102a4a.html Victor Grigas (talk) 00:34, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Denis Pushilin

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Denis Pushilin's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Newsweek":

• From Vladimir Putin: "Alexei Navalny: Is Russia's Anti-Corruption Crusader Vladimir Putin's Kryptonite?". Newsweek. 17 April 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
• From Surkov leaks: Sharkov, Damien (27 October 2016). "Kremlin denies Putin aide's email was hacked—'he does not use email'". Newsweek. Archived from the original on 29 October 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2016. 'I familiarized myself (with the leak),' he said. 'A curious document. I can say that it is not him.'
• From Somalia Battalion: "Pro-Russian Fighter With Nazi Patches Gets Medal for Killing 'Nazis'". Newsweek. 5 April 2022.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 12:22, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

He ran a ponzi scheme?

The first paragraph ends with a statement that he ran a ponzi scheme without citing a source. 103.129.189.62 (talk) 02:55, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

This has been cited and corrected. It might be from some desire to make the subject of the article look bad. I've never met him, not sure whether it is important enough to be headline information or not, so I left it. TiTJiL (talk) 21:01, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Why is this locked?

Multiple credible sources, including a video posted by Denis Pushilin himself, confirm that Pushilin fled Donetsk on 10 September. why does the article not reflect this or permit editing? 2600:1700:6010:43D0:432D:AFF2:65F7:2A67 (talk) 21:12, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Why locked? See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=protect&page=Denis+Pushilin for when/who/why it was locked. See the instructions at {{edit request}} for making an edit request. Boud (talk) 00:55, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Alternatively, please give reliable sources, and maybe someone will add the info. Twitter is not a WP:RS. Boud (talk) 08:28, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

It is under certain circumstances. Dawsongfg (talk) 20:56, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

True. Twitter is usually not a WP:RS. Boud (talk) 01:59, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Neutrality

The article uses language describing Pushilin as a normal politician in a normal state, while no WP:RS describe the DPR as a normal state. Instead, reliable sources describe it as a “puppet state”, “quasi-state” or similar. Rsk6400 (talk) 16:40, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 October 2022

Change "Acting Head of the Donetsk People's Republic (Russia)" to "Acting Head of the Donetsk People's Republic (Ukraine)".

Saying that it is part of Russia is Putinist propaganda, and a violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity. Wikipedia should not be peddling Putinist propaganda. 2401:7000:CB5D:8200:D05:DE94:B3D7:DEFD (talk) 23:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. —Sirdog (talk) 01:10, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

This suggests you are either wholly unaware of the war raging in the region or that you have no concept of geography.

Donetsk has been part of Ukraine since the dissolution of the USSR, and until this war comes to an end and/or the international community recognizes the DPR, it remains part of Ukraine. You want sources to prove that it's not part of Russia, but you're ok with someone saying it's part of Russia without sources? 216.168.113.99 (talk) 18:03, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

This is erroneous. Donetsk is part of Ukraine, not Russia, and that isn't controversial. A cursory glance at a map will confirm this. Duckmonster (talk) 09:25, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

"Preceded by himself"?

In the infobox, it lists his position pre- and post-annexation as if they're different things, and says his current term was "preceded by himself". That doesn't seem to make sense, and the source for this is a link to the Kremlin's official website, which doesn't really say anything like that, from what I can understand. What's going on with that? HappyWith (talk) 19:08, 28 February 2023 (UTC)