As were many other people, I was saddened recently to learn that Russian President Vladimir Putin, after repeatedly denying having any intention of doing so, finally sent the troops he had amassed across the border for “war games” into Ukraine. The invasion, fears about which Putin claimed were evidence of Western paranoia and Russophobia, had begun. War had broken out – or at least a “special military operation”. Russian tanks were rolling and Ukrainian cities were under fire. But after my initial disbelief that one European nation had invaded another – something that hadn’t happened since World War II – I had to admit that I really wasn’t surprised and had even expected it. I knew that Ukraine, especially Kyiv, meant a great deal to Russia and Russian history. And I also knew that they meant a great deal to one Russian in particular, Vladimir Putin himself.
In 2014, during Russia’s earlier incursion into Ukraine, when it annexed Crimea, Putin brought back from Kherson – a city now occupied by Russian forces – a stone. This became the foundation stone of a 60-ft (18m) statue of Prince Vladmir the Great, founder of what in Russian history is known as Kievan Rus’, the “lost kingdom” of mediæval Russia, that in 2015 was erected just outside the Kremlin (see pp.15, 48-50). This suggests strongly that one Vladimir identifies quite a bit with another. In AD 989 Vladimir I converted from Slavic paganism to Greek Orthodox Christianity at Kherson, where he married into the royal Byzantine family, acquiring a porphyrogenite bride in exchange for his baptism. This union formed one of several ties, mythic or factual, between Russia and the Roman Empire. Such an alliance was not welcomed by Emperor Basil II – the intended bride was his sister – who dragged his heels over it, and the coveted knot was tied only after Vladimir threatened to sack Kherson, then under Byzantine rule, if
