Page 9 - The Inprovoked War: Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

CHAPTER ONE

Russia and

Ukraine: A Troubled

History

With their dragon-headed longships and formidable com-
bat skills, the Vikings of Scandinavia were for centuries the
scourge of Europe. In the ninth century, a Viking named Ru-
rik arrived in the eastern European city of Novgorod. Rurik
was a prince of a Scandinavian people called the Rus. His
descendants established a political state centered in the city
of Kyiv. This state, known as Kyivan Rus, encompassed an
area of some 510,000 square miles (1,330,000 sq km) in
eastern Europe. It was a federation of several ethnic groups,
mainly eastern Slavic peoples, and its vast area included
what today are Russia and Belarus. Ukraine, a state whose
name means “Borderland,” was located on the frontier of
Kyivan Rus. Today, these three nations consider Kyivan Rus
the land of their common origin.
Kyivan Rus became prosperous because of its location
on major European and Asian trade routes. But political up-
heaval and changing alliances ultimately caused a gradual
decline of its power, especially in Ukraine. Western Ukraine
was ruled by various invading nations, including Austria and
Poland, while its eastern regions fell under Russian domina-
tion. By the eighteenth century, most of Ukraine had be-
come part of the vast Russian Empire, which stretched from
the Baltic Sea to the Pacifi c Ocean.

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