[1] The tribes were later replaced or consolidated around Kiev by states containing a mixture of Slavs, Varangians and Finno-Ugric groups, starting with the formation of Kievan Rus'.
[7] 20th-century Soviet and Western scholars have sought to give a more balanced perspective, but were still influenced by earlier Imperial Russian literature and their own biases.
[7] From around the late 14th century, Muscovy would gradually dominate and absorb the northeastern Kievan Rus' principalities,[6][8] while competing with Lithuania (and Poland), Novgorod, Tver, and the Teutonic Order for political, socio-economic and cultural control of the entire region.
[8] Muscovy became the Tsardom of Russia in 1547, followed by the Russian Empire in 1721, which conquered and annexed the southwestern former Rus' territories from Poland–Lithuania, the Cossack Hetmanate and the Crimean Khanate during the reign of Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796).
[b] During the Cold War, all of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union as three of its fifteen constituent republics, becoming independent upon its dissolution in 1991.