Oleg of the Drevlyans

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.

Sviatoslav, in the spring of 972 returning with a small retinue from his successful campaign against the Bulgarian Empire to Kievan Rus, is ambushed and killed by the Pechenegs (a Turkic people) near the cataracts of the Dnieper River.

According to the Primary Chronicle, the Pecheneg Khan Kurya makes a chalice from his skull, a traditional steppe nomad custom.

The greatest of the Varangian princes of early Russo-Ukrainian history, Sviatoslav is to be the last non-Christian ruler of the Kievan state.

His three heirs will in 976 initiate a civil war for their father’s vacant throne.

Vladimir, the son of the Norse-’Rus prince Sviatoslav of Kiev by one of his courtesans, had been made prince of Novgorod in 970.

His brothers Oleg and Yaropolk had received, respectively, Drevlian and Kiev.

A few years after the death of their father in 972, the brothers initiate a civil war for their father's throne.

Yaropolk’s Kievan forces defeat his brother Oleg’s Drevlian troops in 977; Oleg is slain while fleeing.

Vladimir goes to Scandinavia to seek aid against his surviving sibling.

Returning in 978 with Norse mercenaries, he seizes Polotsk.