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he participated in the suppression of the [[1956 Hungarian Revolution|1956 Hungarian Revolt]]). He was transferred to command the [[Baltic Military District]] (1958-1959), the [[Southern Group
Thanks Wreck Smurfy. The Red Army editors' group is User:Ryan.opel, myself, and User:W. B. Wilson, who did the bulk of the monumental List of Soviet infantry divisions 1917-57. That list as you will have noticed is mostly Poirer and Connor, thus thoroughly out of date, but better than nothing. Once you've done 354th Rifle Division (Soviet Union) you may wish to consider joining us working on User:Ryan.opel/42nd Army (Soviet Union) and 57th Army (Soviet Union) (from W.B. Wilson). My policy for the last few years has been to focus on armies and divisions, and to leave the rifle corps 'for now'. We have now all but the last sixteen or so regular armies done, so I'm trying to make an effort on those. Would you mind also please kindly redlinking all rifle divisions, artillery divisions, and tank brigades, if you're not already doing so. Warm regards from Aotearoa, Buckshot06(talk)07:33, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Wreck Smurfy, for both the 354th and the 140th. Any division not with an article is yours to write about!! Just one thing - the [[Category:Infantry divisions of the Soviet Union in the Second World War]] should not be added directly to tank division articles. Instead, add it to the redirect - the 193rd Rifle Division (Soviet Union). Then it won't be out of place in the categories. Cheers and thanks Buckshot06(talk)05:17, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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By order SV/2014/005q of the Red Army editor's group, I award you with an additional Order of the Red Banner for your contributions to enhancing English-language knowledge of the enormous sacrifice of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War. Buckshot06(talk)07:37, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Wreck Smurfy, for both the 284th, 70th Guards, and others! Just one very minor thing - the [[Category:Infantry divisions of the Soviet Union in the Second World War|Category Sort number]] needs to be carefully checked. I've just fixed the 284th, which would have been listed as the 69th.. Cheers and thanks Buckshot06(talk)05:17, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Easy. Just click on the page '95th Rifle Division', which takes you through to the 75th GRD, and then you will see a bluelink immediately under the title 'Redirected from 95th RD'. Click on that and it takes you to the 95th RD page itself. I've done this for you - 95th Rifle Division - but it may be worth remembering for the future. Brilliant thanks for all your hard work on these divisions !! Buckshot06(talk)02:28, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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Thanks, Buckshot. I've been busy with other projects most of the past year, but I'll keep running with the 300-series rifle divisions so long as the source material holds out. I'll also take the 87th Guards Rifle, based on the 300th Rifle. By all means you can put in those links; however some of the info (such as honorifics) has come from the titles of uncompleted articles (2nd Formation of 300th Rifle, for example).Wreck Smurfy (talk) 01:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - great work!!. Please set up the 301st Rifle Division alternate title links also, in that case, as we should probably have both - there are so many places where a single Sov rifle division could be mentioned, and not everybody puts in (Soviet Union). Buckshot06(talk)09:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I saw that, and it's great. Do you have access to the full Combat composition of the Soviet Army documents that list the order of battle by month? I found them - I'll see if I can refind the links.
Hi WreckSmurfy, great work on 87 Guards Rifle. Can you tell me which Russian wikipedia pages you are using? There needs to be an attribution template on the talkpage to indicate which Ru wikipedia pages have been used. So would be good to sort this out. Cheers and very many thanks again. Buckshot06(talk)20:15, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Good, thanks. Now a couple of things: we cannot cite WP, even Russian WP, we must cite its source. Second, if you're going to openly refer to the Russian WP page (like II Formation, 304th RD) you really need to interwiki it. The code is [[ru:304-я стрелковая дивизия (2-го формирования)]], inserted under the categories at the bottom of the page. If you're having trouble copying the title across without it becoming gibberish, copy and paste the title of the article, not the url. That's the way I do it. Cheers Buckshot06(talk) 02:51, 25 October 2015 (UTC) Buckshot06(talk)02:48, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK thanks. That helps a lot. It seems strange to me that the various languages of Wikipedia cannot talk among themselves, that a photo that I take from Russian Wikipedia is not already cleared to general use. But we are all in the early days. A few years down the road it will be standard.
Hey, Buckshot. Entirely agree on moving the prewar section of the 304th to the 109th, although I did a bit of editing to the 109th to make it read a bit more smoothly. The 304th article threw me for a bit of a loop when I realized that Sharp's account was a bit off the rails; the timeline he stated did not make sense during 1943-early 1944, so I drew on the Russian WP source more than I would usually do to try to get an accurate account. This happens with Sharp from time to time; no criticism, it's a huge topic. With a bit of research and common sense it's not hard to recognize, but it does kind of leave us hanging without a reliable English-language source. On the one hand I prefer doing these division histories methodically, one by one. On the other hand, having reliable primary sources, like memoirs, forces us to bounce all around as they become available. For now, I'm shooting for the happy medium.
As for your comment: "just because Charles Sharp doesn't pay too much attention to divisional formations formed prewar doesn't mean they don't exist", I don't think he can be blamed for the fact that I have yet to obtain Vol. 8 of his OoB Series. Seems about time to do so.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 02:50, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Great stuff. Now I'll tell you a secret: the reason I concentrate on lower-numbered divisions is that they tend to have been formed multiple times, so if you fully write out the history you cover more divisional formations with a single effort. Should you get tired of working through the 305-upwards series at some point, please consider working on all division that have been formed four times, then all divisions that have been formed three times... I'll see if I can ferret out a list. Buckshot06(talk)04:02, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. As for a list, Dunn's Stalin's Keys to Victory seems pretty complete. I don't refer to it much because it's organized in an odd way (same reason why Dunn's Soviet Blitzkrieg is awkward). I wrote the 140th Rifle Division a couple of years ago precisely because it was the only division raised four times, so it seemed to cry out for an article. Having said that, the 305th tonight was pretty easy, since in the late war its combat path happened to follow the 304th for the most part. If you keep doing the low-numbered, I'll keep doing the high-numbered, and sometime in the next decade or so we will have this project done. Incidentally, I'm a bit chuffed that with some of my articles, English Wikipedia has more info available on these divisions than Russian Wikipedia. Get on the ball, comrades.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 05:03, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think we'll put that back to sometime in the 2030s :). However, if we could be sure of the reliability of the Ruwiki writing, and sources, we could just translate a lot more, and that would move things along. Do you have/could you get, from Dunn or anywhere else, a list of divisions formed three times? Then they would become my first priorities. Buckshot06(talk)20:43, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately he has everything arranged chronologically by date of formation. He uses the A, B, C, D code following the division number to indicate 1st, 2nd, 3rd and (in that one case) 4th formation very reliably, so with some digging you could come up with your own list of C-coded divisions. Just glancing at a page at random, I can see that the 3rd Formation of the 87th Rifle Div. took place in Feb., '42 in the Far East and it was assigned to Stalingrad Front in Aug. But that's the only one on that particular table.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 01:54, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's the state of the play, is it? Well, I cannot access 'Stalin's Key's to Victory's tables on gbooks (though I saw the page where he explained the codes), and cannot get through to the Perecheni, so I suppose it comes down to asking you for a favour. Could you sit down when you have some spare time and take a list of the divisions that are listed 'C'? How bit a job would that be? Buckshot06(talk)02:04, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - much appreciated!!. For the 306th (First Formation), strongly suggest you look at BSSA. Dunn was writing before it became generally available. Just checked 1941 and 1942 and doesn't show up. Need to check the High Numbered Divisions article. Buckshot06(talk)23:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've just added the 289th-292nd, the 298th, the 307th, and 309th-311th to the template. If you'd like a minor change from the 300 series divisions, do please consider doing the 292nd and 298th.. Cheers Buckshot06(talk)01:32, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I finished (for the time being) the 307th this evening. If I may say, I find this an inconvenient means of communication. If you wish to contact me directly my email is [email protected]. Please send me yours.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 04:50, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. I don't really like to actually write out my e-mail address on the open web (spammers ahoy!!) but go to the left-hand side of my userpage and click via the EmailThisUser function, which you can enable yourself if you like. Buckshot06(talk)19:50, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited 67th Guards Rifle Division, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Dvina River. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited 50th Army (Soviet Union), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Belorussian Front. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Thank you for your recent articles, including 309th Rifle Division (Soviet Union), which I read with interest. When you create a new article, can you add the WikiProject assessment templates to the talk of that article? See the talk page of the article I mentioned for an example of what I mean. Usually it is very simple, you just add something like {{WikiProject Keyword}} to the article's talk, with keyword replaced by the associated WikiProject (ex. if it's a biography article, you would use WikiProject Biography; if it's a United States article, you would use WikiProject United States, and so on). You do not have to rate the article if you do not want to, others will do it eventually. Those templates are very useful, as they bring the articles to a WikiProject attention, and allow them to start tracking the articles through Wikipedia:Article alerts and other tools. For example, WikiProject Poland relies on such templates to generate listings such as Article Alerts, Popular Pages, Quality and Importance Matrix and the Cleanup Listing. Thanks to them, WikiProject members are more easily able to defend your work from deletion, or simply help try to improve it further. Feel free to ask me any questions if you'd like more information about using those talk page templates. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here08:04, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your kind words, Piotr. I'll take a stab at adding the WikiProject Keywords. The Boldin article is obviously a Biography, but an article on a military formation such as 309th Rifles would go under Military History as you have done, correct? To be honest, I've never even looked at the talk page of an article before. Something new, every day. Oh, and I now see someone is way ahead of me on the Boldin article.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 03:18, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again for the kind words. I have wondered how the DYK section worked, so I appreciate the info. It seems like a whole lot of rules and bother, to be honest. Let me see if I can write a decent hook for the Boldin article: * ... that Ivan Boldin was given command of 50th Army in November, 1941, after his predecessor, Mjr. Gen. A.N. Yermakov, had been arrested and executed for dereliction of duty? There, an "if it bleeds, it leads" hook. I used to work in the newspaper biz.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 03:48, 17 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited 50th Army (Soviet Union), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Kirov. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Thanks kindly. I redid Oryol Front as well. Hope to have 60th Army done tonight, then I'm going to revise some of my earlier rifle division articles now that I have Sharp's Vols. V, VII and VIII.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 22:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've posted several images from the USSR such as Boldin, which I took from a wargaming website, and Batov, which I imported from Russian Wikipedia two years ago. I got the Fedyuninsky image from Google Images. I've put all these through the uploader and have never been challenged on any of them. If you want to remove the Fedyuninsky image from his article, that is your choice. I will include it in the 54th Army article and if it is challenged, so be it. The only image I've posted that was removed was an original photo I took of a public sign that was judged as original content. Try to figure that one out.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 04:23, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't dream of removing it. I'm going to try and dig up the appropriate copyright/fair use thing for it. The thing I meant to emphasise is that the Troops of Copyright Nazi Designation are very active round here. Buckshot06(talk)06:27, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the heads-up, then. Do I play requests? Sure. The 207th is in Vol. VIII and X of Sharp, with a bit of supporting material in Dunn. I think I'll take a break from 54th Army and put this together tonight. Looks interesting; I've never seen a 1st Formation being abandoned.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 02:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think you should be proud of your hard work that puts English Wikipedia ahead of Russian Wikipedia for this divisions, but the category on English Wikipedia with Soviet World War II divisions has 172 entries in it. The Russian one has 628. While we do the divisions differently, with all formations in the same division, we've got at least 300 divisions to go :(
Well, comrade, if I can keep up my present pace, I'll put a good dent in it. And I'm off work the last two weeks of December. :-) But for right now, I'm getting back to 54th Army.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 03:38, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Ryan.opel: Yes, would be great for you to lend a hand. There's a few remaining armies to create, 48th Army needs work, and if you wish to work on divisions, there's a list above of divisions formed three times that could use articles. Merry Christmas!! Buckshot06(talk)21:27, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'll start on that as soon as I have 4th Guards finished. This will be fairly easy since they were both in 31st Guards Rifle Corps from late '43 on.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 23:46, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Most welcome, and season's greetings to you as well. Before proceeding to 40th Guards I'm taking care of some unfinished business. I made some additions to 109th Rifle Div. earlier today, and assuming you're OK with it, I'd like to flesh out the GPW history of 161st Rifle Div.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 01:29, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No problem whatsoever, thankyou. Wherever you're working, please remove V.I. Feskov et al 2004 wherever it is cited as a reference, substitute the data from Holm 2015 (www.ww2.dk/new), and place in Feskov 2004's place Feskov 2013 (second time around and hopefully better!!). Buckshot06(talk)09:46, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Buckshot06. Just so you know, user K.e.coffman has created an article this evening on this topic. It's pretty bare-bones (a Stub, in fact), and also somewhat misleading to my eye. You may want to see what you can do to improve it.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 02:58, 26 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, when you get tired of doing 300-series divisions, that would be my next request. My "ulterior motive" should now be pretty clear: getting the Second World War histories of the divisions that survived through to 1991 or even afterwards. Also filling in the GSFG gaps. Buckshot06(talk)03:21, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Was not sure you were aware that there was a chunk of material at 66 GRD/22 Mech Bde (Ukr). I've moved it into the article; reorganise, delete, reuse, as you will.... Cheers Buckshot06(talk)21:45, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I saw that, yes. Thank you. I'm planning to add info on the original 66th GRD to that page when I finish the 293rd. Some of that material appears inaccurate; neither of my sources (Sharp, Dunn) consider the rebuilding at Buzuluk to be a second formation, and Russian Wikipedia also only shows two formations total.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 02:25, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
First, thanks for 399th Rifle Division (Soviet Union) - much appreciated. Sharp was writing in 2006 when he may not have had full access to BSSA, which we've now got reasonably reliable copies of. Would you mind listing the last seven divisions - better, the last twenty in the extract you spoke of - so we can check them against BSSA? Cheers and thanks Buckshot06(talk)21:56, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good to hear from you and you are welcome. The reference is actually to Dunn, but I'm assuming that's a typo on your part. Dunn's text states "twenty", but the actual Table 5.21 lists sixteen. The last seven are especially problematic as they show no date assigned or front/army assigned, and the last four show no military district they were formed in. These are: 306A (Moscow); 410 (Moscow); 416A (Volga); 397A; 389; 399A; and 401.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 02:26, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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I think you will now see that the article is coming together after my edits today. If you have anything worthwhile to contribute, I will welcome it.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 05:10, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For "consistent, solid work on Soviet division histories", I have the honor of presenting you with this WikiProject Barnstar. For the Military history WikiProject, TomStar81 (Talk) 09:36, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Spaciba, tovarich! This is one I had been planning to get at for a while. The new Glantz book gave me enough material to fill the gaps. I'll go back to the 300-series after this.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 03:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited 336th Rifle Division (Soviet Union), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Belorussian Front. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Hey, Trilotat. I've had a look at your draft. First of all, here is the Russian Wikipedia page for Grechkin: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BD,_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B9_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87. I understand you can't read Russian (my own skills aren't great but are improving) but you should be able to get dates and unit designations from it, and Google Translate is always useful. Problem is you can't cite directly from it. I have been through my source materials hoping to find a bio on Grechkin, but all I came up with is a short account of him leading 28th Army's attack on the Perekop Isthmus in Oct., 1943 in Forczyk's Where the Iron Crosses Grow. Generals.dk is a great source, but I'd be willing to bet that even if you had access to full Russian records you would not be able to get all those dates lined up because there are gaps and conflicting sources. In my opinion, the chart of appointments that you've made is a bit over-ambitious; I'd never try that myself unless it was so simple as to be pointless, and you'll notice the Russian Wikipedia article doesn't have anything like that, either. I hope this helps.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 23:52, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, Sharp is not so sharp on some of those late-war 2nd formations in the Far East. To be fair, that's pretty obscure territory. I will make the appropriate corrections, tovarisch.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 02:22, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I do use it quite often (I have it saved as a .pdf) if I need to confirm if a RD was in this or that corps or army on such-and-such date, but I don't often reference it unless it's the only reference I have or if it contradicts an English-language source. And my Russian language skillz are improving by the day... well, by the week, at least.Wreck Smurfy (talk) 01:28, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Depending on your commitments, would you also consider keeping an eye on Zee Money and helping him with his contributions, as you wish, and when you have the time? He seems enthusiastic!! Buckshot06(talk)05:07, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I can have a look. Which leads me to ask, how exactly does one "keep an eye" on another user? I notice that you and Kges at least are always aware when I put up a new page. Is there some sort of message system I'm not aware of?Wreck Smurfy (talk) 00:46, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You removed my edit which brought back a citation that had been removed earlier. I'm just wondering why that citation shouldn't be there, and why it should be left empty. --Hameltion (talk) 02:53, 19 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the tip. It looks like everything I added is still there. First time I've been editing a page while someone else was doing so as well. Threw me off my game. Wreck Smurfy (talk) 00:59, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't planning on doing the 38th because it was one of the Guards divisions formed from airborne corps, so it didn't evolve from a rifle division. I'm finally getting back on track with the 300-series RDs, but I can add what I have in Sharp when I get a chance. Wreck Smurfy (talk) 23:31, 24 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
All my data indicates that these divisions were 'Mechanised Divisions' when they were with the Mechanised Corps, not, whatever Sharp may say, 'Motorised Rifle Divisions.' What do you think? Cheers Buckshot06(talk)04:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I translate them as motorized divisions to follow Glantz's translation. Describing them as motor rifle divisions is actually an error found in some Russian sources, however, the expert sources like Drig and thus Glantz, use the term "motorized". The Russian words for motorized, mechanized, and motor rifle are all different. Kges1901 (talk) 08:49, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I side with Kges on this. The Russian terms are distinct. I think the confusion comes from English-language sources. These divisions had (on paper) a full regiment of tanks alongside two regiments of (on paper) motorized infantry, so fit the post-war Western definition of "mechanized" forces (all units motorized; some on tracks, some on wheels). Wreck Smurfy (talk) 02:49, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Will do. I think I've redlinked or bluelinked to 1st Romanian in my more recent work. My current plan is to complete the 352nd RD tonight and start the 353rd, then go back and update the 300-series RDs with any new info I have and generally bring them up to current standard, before going back to the rest of the series. I will check to make sure the Romanian links are there when appropriate. Also, Kges (Richard) is suggesting that I write out full names and patronymics of all commanding officers in infoboxes and first mentions in the texts of articles. Please advise if this is necessary, especially as I'm including the fill names of the general officers in the External Links. Wreck Smurfy (talk) 00:57, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please use full names for the greatest possible accuracy when mentioning commanders of divisions in the infobox and on their first mention in the article as you currently use initials in the division articles and the official list of commanders includes full names. Kges1901 (talk) 20:53, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Can do. Back in my university days this would have been called "padding", and it also seems unnecessary with the names being spelled out in the External Links, but if those are the rules, so be it. Wreck Smurfy (talk) 01:00, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The reason for this is because some initial combinations could be common, such as a division commander named "I.I. Ivanov", for example, and that readers will normally read the body of the article first.Kges1901 (talk) 01:31, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I can buy that argument. I'm going to be making revisions to the 300-series divisions I've done so far as soon as I have the 353rd completed, and I'll make these changes. Wreck Smurfy (talk) 01:48, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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Thanks, Buckshot. I'm pretty pleased with how this one has shaped up so far. I especially liked being able to quote from Brezhnev's book, which I still have from back in university. Wreck Smurfy (talk) 23:13, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. That's a real mess. I have several additional sources, including Glantz's Kharkov 1942, and I could do a major revision, but I'm leery about stepping in where someone seems to have an agenda. Wreck Smurfy (talk) 20:52, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Orphaned non-free image File:Col. Gen. Pavel Ivanovich Batov in 1945.jpg
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Hello, Wreck Smurfy. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
We have a problem with your Russian images - like File:Soviet Major General Aleksandr Dmitrievich Berezin.jpg. There is no proper US copyright tag (Russian copyright is irrelevant on en-wiki). I posed a question at c:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#Advice_on_Image and your statement is correct - at that time the copyright was 5 years but it changed later, and included old images. At URAA (1996) it was 50 years, so any published Russian image pre 1945 would be OK, and would not have it's US copyright renewed. That looks fine so far, and if that is the case then the images could not only stay, but be moved to commons with c:Template:PD-Russia and c:Template:PD-1996 templates. However there is one major issue, in that all these calculations only work when there is evidence of publication at the required date period. If they were unpublished until they hit that web site, then the copyright countdown starts then. Partly due to the Russian poor framing of its copyright laws (meaning all unpublished works retain copyright indefinitely), and the US law, which allows 120 years for unpublished works before they become PD. If you cannot show when they were published, then they may have to go. Ronhjones (Talk)18:46, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
On your first point, there are two ways to estimate the dates when these photos were taken. 1). In a few instances the officer died during the war, like File:Soviet_Major_General_Matvei_Alekseevich_Usenko.jpg, which clearly places an upper limit on the date the image was created. In this case it had to have been before May 12, 1943, the day he was killed in action. This is also the case with Berezin, who was killed in action on July 5, 1942. 2). In other instances the date can be estimated from the details of uniform and insignia style. In the case of Berezin, the collar tab badges of rank he's wearing were abolished no later than 1942, as I indicate in the caption. Usenko is also wearing a style of collar tab badges that were not used after 1942. However, this image File:Soviet_Lieutenant_General_David_Markovich_Barinov.jpg clearly dates from the mid-'50s, given the style of tunic (with lapels) and the necktie, and I've indicated this in the caption as well. Creation dates, therefore, can be estimated quite accurately. On your second point, however, I have no way to establish when these images were published. Since they all conform to a set pattern (portrait photo, full uniform, no hat or cap, not candid or casual) I have assumed that they were taken for official purposes, and published at some point or we would not have access to them today. Many, like the image of Berezin, appear to be copies of copies, (even moreso, this one: File:Soviet_Lieutenant_General_Filipp_Yakovlevich_Solovyov.jpg) indicating they were published and then reproduced, perhaps several times over, given the quality of the images. But this is speculation on my part. Wreck Smurfy (talk) 23:37, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
File:Soviet Major General Aleksandr Dmitrievich Berezin.jpg listed for discussion
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