Kiev Is the Ancestral Homeland of Russia
Putin is correct when he says that Russia and much of the Ukrainian territory have been one through long stretches of history. Ironically, therefore, the Kiev today being laid to waste by the Russian army is actually the birthplace of Russia!
As an excellent Washington post history recently explained,
The “Rus” – the people whose name got tacked on to Russia – were originally Scandinavian traders and settlers who made their way from the Baltic Sea through the marshes and forests of Eastern Europe down toward the fertile riverlands of what’s now Ukraine. Other Viking adventurers journeyed to Constantinople, the great capital of the Byzantine Empire, to find their fortune – sometimes as
hired muscle.
The first major center of the “Rus” was at Kiev, established in the 9th century. In 988, Vladimir, a prince of the Kievan Rus, was baptized by a Byzantine priest in the old Greek colony of Khersonesos on the Crimean coast. His conversion marked the advent of Orthodox Christianity among the Rus and remains a moment of great nationalist symbolism for Russians. Putin
invoked this older Vladimir in a speech when justifying his annexation of Crimea.
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