" The official Soviet line on the dispute emphasised harmony, homogeneity, Brotherhood. Kievan Rus was inhabited by a single monolithic ‘ancient Rus’ nationality, from which Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians all descended; for them to argue over Volodymyr and Yaroslav made no more sense than for the English and French to squabble over Charlemagne. The languages of all three nations descend from the ancient Slavs’, and all three inherited Orthodoxy. "

― Anna Reid , Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine