Why does Putin think Ukraine should be Russian? It’s all to do with the Vikings

Whittock is an author and historian whose recent book, Vikings in the East: From Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin – The Origins of a Contested Legacy in Russia and Ukraine, dissects that shared story and its connections to the medieval world of the Viking Age.

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At the centre of this origin story are the Rus (a particular group of Norse traders and warriors who settled in Eastern Europe and gave their name to both Russia and Belarus), and the towering 10th-century ruler Vladimir the Great, whose conversion to Christianity reshaped the destiny of the region.

The Rus: the Vikings who headed east

The Vikings are mostly remembered as violent raiders of the lands that lie south or west of Scandinavia: Britain, France, Ireland and Iceland.

Yet from the 9th century, another branch of Norse seafarers set out east, rather than west.

They navigated the great rivers of Eastern Europe – the Dnieper, the Don, the Volga – using their ships to link the Baltic to the Black Sea and the rich markets of Byzantium.

These Norsemen became known as the Rus.

“The Norse who came to this Slavic region are described as the Rus, and that’s a name that will run and run. It still exists in the name of Belarus and of course, Russia,” explains Whittock.

The Rus were traders and warriors, dealing in furs, honey, wax and enslaved people. They established fortified towns along river routes, often marrying into Slavic elites. Over time they became culturally hybrid: Norse in origin but increasingly Slavic in language, custom and culture.

Their most important political centre was Kyiv, which by the 10th century had become the capital of a loose federation of principalities known as Kievan Rus.

What was Kievan Rus?

Kievan Rus wasn’t a centralised nation state but rather a network of regional centres including Kyiv, Novgorod, Smolensk and Chernihiv, bound together by dynastic ties and tribute. Its rulers belonged to the Rurikid dynasty, descended from the Viking chieftain Rurik.

At its height in the 11th century, Kievan Rus stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Trade flowed south to Byzantium and north to Scandinavia. The society was multi-ethnic, comprised of Slavs, Norse, Balts, Finnic peoples and steppe nomads.

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Kyiv’s wealth and culture gave it prestige, but already the threat of future fragmentation was present: powerful local princes, rival trade hubs and external threats from nomadic raiders were all emerging.

Vladimir the Great and the baptism of Rus

One of Kyiv’s most celebrated rulers was Vladimir the Great, who lived c958–1015.

“In AD 988, a decision was made by Vladimir’s court to convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. It was a game changer and of immense historic importance because it allied the Rus with the Eastern Roman empire,” Whittock explains.

Vladimir ordered mass baptisms in the River Dnieper. From this point on, the Rus elite looked to Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine empire, for spiritual authority.

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This decision had far-reaching consequences. Rus Christianity was Orthodox, not Catholic. Its holy books were written in Old Church Slavonic, not Latin. Its priests and rituals bound the region eastward, and created the notion of Holy Rus: a concept of Russian origins connected to both geography and religion.

“We have this highly enhanced religious, national and ethnic character,” says Whittock. And it’s that character that would form the shared basis of Russia and Ukraine and the broader Soviet landscape in eastern Europe.

Collapse, Mongol conquest and the rise of Muscovy

Kievan Rus never became a lasting empire. In the 12th century, internal rivalries and shifting trade routes weakened it. In the 13th century, Mongol invasions shattered its unity.

Power shifted north and east. Novgorod survived as a trading hub, but over time, the newer principality of Muscovy, centred on modern Moscow, ascended in prominence. Its princes cooperated with the Mongol khans, gradually building resources and influence.

By the end of the 15th century, Moscow had thrown off Mongol dominance and emerged as the core of a new Russian state. Its rulers claimed continuity with Kievan Rus, insisting that the sacred legacy of Vladimir’s baptism had passed to them.

Shared origins but divergent paths

Russia, Ukraine and Belarus all trace cultural and linguistic roots back to this early medieval era, and to Kievan Rus. But despite that shared origin, their histories would diverge significantly in the succeeding centuries.

Much of western Ukraine came under the control of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth between the 14th and 17th centuries. This exposed Ukrainians to Catholicism, Renaissance ideas and traditions of local autonomy. On the steppes, Cossack hosts developed a reputation for fierce independence, cultivating ideals of freedom and self-rule that became central to Ukrainian identity.

Russia remained centred on Muscovy. From there it expanded eastwards, building a vast empire under an increasingly powerful autocracy. The tsars claimed universal authority, drawing church and state tightly together in ways that reinforced centralised control.

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By the 19th century, the Russian empire sought to assert control over Ukrainian lands through Russification – the policy of imposing Russian language and culture to create cultural unity within the Russian Empire. Ukrainian language was restricted in schools and publishing, and folk culture was suppressed.

“Very often the Russians are saying, ‘You’re exactly the same as we are’, and then carrying out Russification, which begs the question, why do you need to Russify if there’s no difference?” Whittock notes.

The very act of trying to erase Ukrainian identity underscored its distinctiveness, but Russia succeeded in its aims, and most of Ukraine was absorbed into the Russian Empire.

Ukraine in the Soviet century

After the Russian Revolution that brought the Russian Empire to its end, Ukraine briefly declared independence in 1917–21 before being incorporated into the Soviet Union. Under Josef Stalin, Ukraine suffered terribly, not least during the Holodomor, the famine of 1932-33 that killed millions.

In Soviet ideology, Ukraine was part of the brotherhood of Slavic nations, yet its distinctiveness was tightly controlled. Expressions of Ukrainian nationalism were branded as separatism. At the same time, Ukrainians played a major role in Soviet life, from industry to the military.

This Soviet legacy left Ukraine deeply entwined with Russia but also fostered resentment at repeated suppression of national identity.

Putin’s use of history

In the 21st century, Putin has used the Rus story as a historical anchor for his policies. Following the annexation of Crimea in 2014, he compared the peninsula to Jerusalem, calling it sacred Russian ground where Vladimir the Great had been baptised.

“All of these statements are rooted in the origin stories of Kievan Rus and are used to support a narrative by Putin that there is one monolithic Russian nation that has been divided by modern events, but must be brought back together again, if necessary by force,” Whittock observes.

By invoking the concept of Holy Rus – the notion of the religious, historic and geographical origin behind both Russia and Ukraine – Putin presents himself and the modern Russian state as a re-unifier, restoring a shared history broken apart by artificial borders.

For Whittock, the flaw in Putin’s version of history is its denial of Ukrainian agency.

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“Although we are the inheritors of our history, we are not prisoners of our history. We still have agency,” he argues.

Putin’s claim that Ukraine is inseparable from Russia rests on a story that begins with Viking adventurers and Vladimir the Great’s baptism. The Rus were Vikings who created a new Norse-Slavic identity and founded the basis of the cultures that became Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. And, by invoking the history of Holy Rus, Putin presents history as a chain binding Ukrainians to Russia.

It’s a genuine shared history, but, Whittock argues, it’s not one that should bind the present or future.

“Putin denies the agency whilst emphasising the original unification. You need to recognise the reality of origins, absolutely, but you also need to recognise current people’s agency to decide their own trajectory and their own future.”

Martyn Whittock was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.