That's pretty much confirmed already; Kievan Rus' (middle ages government) with Rurik = Hrœrekr of Ladoga in 862, who was an Old Norse speaker; not even four ge

That's pretty much confirmed already; Kievan Rus' (middle ages government) with Rurik = Hrœrekr of Ladoga in 862, who was an Old Norse speaker; not even four generations later his family was already native Common East Slavic speakers, assimilated to the locals, like the very name of Svyatoslav I of Kiev shows. The process was extremely similar to what happened in Italy with the Longobardi and in Spain with the Visigoth. And that Kievan Rus' is the ancestor state of Ukraine (aka Ruthenia), Belarus (white Ruthenia/Rus') and Russia (Rus'-ia). The very trident that you see in the Ukrainian coat of arms is almost certainly a Rurik symbol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Ukraine#Tryzub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Ukraine#Tryzub >Russian state going rogue in an invasion I'm not even a tiny bit surprised. The Russian government is one of those states where you don't expect anything reasonable, human, or moral.