In the war for Ukraine at Zelensky v. Putin, two men with essentially the same first name fighting for their place in history, but not just for the respective countries, but for the ancestral roots that both Russia and Ukraine share and both rulers claim to be the true defender of.

And a prince who ruled over a thousand years ago lies at the heart of that

intertwined controversial history.

I'm Gustavo Ariano. You're listening to the Times, Daily News from the LA Times. It's Wednesday,

March 23rd, 2022. Today, have Vladimir the Great in Russian or Volodymyr in Ukrainian take your pick but be prepared to defend it

helps explain why Russia's Vladimir Putin is hell-bent on taking over Ukraine and why Volodymyr Zelenskyy is so adamantly defending it.

Thank you. is so adamantly defending it. Here to talk about this medieval prince, says Olenka Pevni, she's a university lecturer

in early Slavonic culture at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Olenka, welcome to the Times.

Hello, it's great to be here.

Before we get to the man himself and why he means so much to Russia and Ukraine, let's start

with his kingdom.

What was Kivenruz?

Great question.

So Kiven Rus was not one thing the way we would imagine it. It wasn't a single state

or the way Putin would sell it. But what it was was a whole bunch of principalities. So at first,

there were Slavic tribes that lived there and they were pagan and they had various religions

and various rulers. And then the Varangians came

down river routes and developed these settlements and these merchant areas. And these merchant areas

eventually developed into principalities. And so there were many princes in the Ruslands and there were many Ruslands.

And so a prince in Kiev would live in the Kiev in the Ruslands and a prince in the

city of Novgorod would be in the Novgorodian Ruslands. So basically what we need to do is get away

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