Nikephoros, after the failure of negotiations, attempts…

Sviatoslav declares his intention of establishing a Russo-Bulgarian empire with its capital at Pereyaslavets (now Perejaslav-Chmel'nickij) on the Danube River.

Transferring his capital here in 969, …

…Sviatoslav designates Vladimir, his youngest son by his housekeeper Malusha, as ruler of Novgorod the Great, but …

…gives Kiev to Yaropolk, the elder of his two legitimate sons.

Oleg receives the rulership of of Drelinia, a region which is today in the western Ukraine.

The Rus' return west in 969 and ravage the eastern Bulgarian lands.

Sviatoslav, moving southward in 969 at the behest of Constantinople to seize the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv) and other Bulgarian territory, …

…defeats the rebellious Bulgarians but then refuses to step aside for Constantinople’s planned takeover, as Sviatoslav wants a western frontier for Kievan Rus'.

Boris, the eldest surviving son of Emperor Peter I of Bulgaria and Maria (renamed Eirene) Lekapena, a granddaughter of Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos of Constantinople, had been born by 931, when he had visited Constantinople together with his mother.

Nothing else is known of Boris II's life until 968, when he went to Constantinople again to negotiate a peace settlement with Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, and apparently to serve as an honorary hostage.

This arrangement had been intended to put an end to the conflict between Bulgaria and Constantinople, who would now join forces against Prince Sviatoslav I of Kiev, whom the Greek emperor had pitted against the Bulgarians.

In 969, when a new Kievan invasion defeats the Bulgarians again, Peter I abdicates to become a monk.

In circumstances that are not entirely clear, Boris II is allowed to return to Bulgaria and sit on his father's throne.

(The later Byzantine chronicle of John Skylitzes confounds this with a later event, in which Boris and his brother escaped Constantinople after the so-called rebellion of the Kometopouloi in Macedonia.)

Constantinople’s offensive against the Hamdanids advances into Syria and northern Mesopotamia in 969 under general Michael Bourtzes, the first prominent member of the Bourtzes family, originating in the upper Euphrates region, which will go on to become one of the major clans of the imperial Greek military aristocracy during the eleventh century.

He had first came to prominence in late 968, when Nikephoros II had appointed him as patrikios and strategos of the small theme of Mauron Oros ("Black Mountain") and tasked to lead the forces blockading the city of Antioch.

Acting against Nikephoros's orders not to assault the city in his absence, in the late autumn of 969, Bourtzes had persuaded a traitor inside the city to surrender one of the wall's main towers, which he then promptly occupied.

He had then defended this post against repeated attacks of the city's defenders for three days, until the reinforcements led by Peter Phokas arrived and secured the city for the Empire.

Despite his major role in this success, Bourtzes's reward is distinctly lacking: angry at him for disobeying his orders, or, according to another account, for laying fire and destroying much of the city, Emperor Nikephoros dismisses him from his post and appoints a kinsman of his, Eustathios Maleinos, as the first governor of Antioch.

Angered by this perceived injustice, Bourtzes joins a conspiracy involving a number of other prominent generals who are discontent at Nikephoros, chief among them John Tzimiskes.

Subsequently, …

…Phokas resumes his advance against Aleppo, forcing its commander, Qarquya, to capitulate and sign a document making him and the city an imperial vassal.

These victories are achieved largely by the new cavalry force built up by Nikephoros.

The Ikhshidid dynasty of Egypt had been founded in 935 by Muhammad bin Tughj, a Sogdian commander who began as governor and was later given the title Ikhshid (Persian for "prince") by the 'Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad.

While Ibn Tughj's sons Unujur and 'Ali remain the nominal Ikhshidid rulers, real governmental power had since 946 rested in the hands of Kafur, originally an enslaved black man from either Ethiopia or the Sudan, who had successfully restrained Fatimid and Hamdanid intrusions into his territories; he had also patronized learning and the arts, briefly boasting the presence of the eminent poet al-Mutanabbi in his court.

At Kafur's death in 968, the Fatimids, having spent a half-century consolidating power in North Africa, had moved eastward to seize from the Ikhshidids not only Egypt but also Palestine and Syria and to threaten Baghdad itself.

Fatimid troops under Jawhar conquer the Nile Valley in 969 after a siege at Giza and overthrow the last of the Ikhshidid rulers, a boy named Abu al-Fawaris Ahmad, grandson of the founder.

The conquest had been prepared by a treaty with the Vizir of the Ikhshidids, by which Sunnis would be guaranteed freedom of religion, so the Fatimids have encountered little resistance.

Jawhar’s troops now advance across Sinai into ...