Long History of Russia vs. Ukraine

Russia was founded in the Ukraine. It was founded in the Ukraine (NA UKRAEENYE), not in Ukraine (V UKRAEENYE) not once, but twice, and both times for the same reason. Russia is not a word in Russian or any other Slavic language. The Rus were a subgroup of the Varangians, known today more commonly as Vikings. The lands that the Rus first occupied in today's northwest Russia were rich with wildlife, fish and game, and they were close to the Rus ancestral homelands in Scandinavia, but they had no clearly defined and defensible borders and when, in the 9th century the Rus came under sustained attack form their better equipped and better organized neighbors in today's Lithuania and northeast Poland, a few notable victories notwithstanding, they had to flee south to the wild shores of the Dnieper river. The Dnieper, on the banks of which I had the misfortune of being born, is a major navigable river with an asterisk. It flows from north to south and spills into the Black Sea, but not before it cascades over a series of cataracts which make upriver navigation from the sea impossible even for the shallowest draft boats. This quirk of geography makes the middle reaches of the Dnieper both navigable and sheltered from attack by seaborne invaders like the Vikings. It also makes Black Sea deep water ports that more important for Ukraine.