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Why do most Westerners misunderstand Russia?
They do not know history.
Vikings had a route of trade with Byzantium going through today’s Russia and Ukraine. About 1,100 years ago, today’s Kyiv became a prominent post on that route. Local Slavs took control, and in 988, a local prince, Vladimir the Great, took Christianity from Byzantium and married the emperor’s sister. It marks the beginning of statehood in the lands of Ruthenia. Similarly, as all over Europe, the beginnings were chaotic, and borders were liquid until the Mongols’ Golden Horde took over in 1237. For the next 240 yrs, Mongols worked in unison with Tatars, and in Russian history, that period is known as Tatar Yoke.
Mongols did not conquer Lithuania. Lithuanians gradually chipped away at the Golden Horde’s western Ruthenian lands, and by the middle of the 14th century, they controlled territories of today’s Belarus, most of Ukraine, and a part of today’s western Russia. In the 15th century, Lithuania went into a union with the Polish Kingdom, forming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the 17th century, Russia began shaving off Ruthenian lands. By the beginning of the 19th century, Russia controlled most of them, except a small part of western Ukraine, which went to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Tatar Yoke on most of today’s European part of Russia lasted for about 240 years, until 1480…
