How did the Vikings shape Russia and Ukraine?

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. The story of the Vikings who traveled to Eastern Europe is just as thrilling as the story of those who headed west. It's also just as important, still being relevant today because of its deep-rooted connections to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

But what exactly are those long-lasting links? Historian and author of Vikings in the East, Martin Whittuck, examines this complicated history in a conversation with James Osborne. Martin, your book is a deep exploration of how the story of the Vikings is interconnected with the earliest origins of the states of Russia and Ukraine and the very live ramifications of those connections today. In 2021, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Putin published an essay

on those historical connections between Russia and Ukraine and this purported history would then go on to serve as one of his justifications for the invasion of Ukraine. Before we get to the Vikings, could you provide an overview of that historical claim made by President Putin in 2021? Putin's claim, as shown in his essay on the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians, which is its title, basically claims that because of a shared origin, that the Ukrainians and the Russians are one people and that any division of them into two sovereign states is an artificial modern construct. And in so doing he referenced the ancient Rus, the Norse

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