This year's celebration to mark the anniversary of the baptism of Kyivan Rus, which took place 1,026 years ago, is far different from last year's event. A year ago, then-President Viktor Yanukovych took a lot of criticism for inviting Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A year later, Yanukovych is hiding out in Russia against charges of mass murder and mass corruption as his patron, Putin, wages war against eastern Ukraine after stealing the nation’s Crimean peninsula in March.
It’s hard to say what the medieval rulers of Kyivan Rus, especially Vladimir the Great, would make of today’s events. Vladimir moved the eastern Slavic kingdom — which included much of modern-day Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and existed from mid-9th century to early 13th century — from paganism to Eastern rite Orthodox Christianity.
