Russia’s Changing Identity: In Search of a Role in the 21st Century
... century, Kievan Rus became fragmented, with no single political center. In the early thirteenth century, it was overrun and devastated by the Mongols. The invasion led to a split within Russia. While its western and southwestern principalities (now Belarus and Ukraine, respectively) lost their independence and were absorbed by the neighboring countries of Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary, the northeastern principalities became tributaries of the Mongol Empire. For a long period of time, there was ...