Rus'–Byzantine War (1043)
1043 naval raid against Constantinople by the Kievan Rus'
The final Rus'–Byzantine War was, in essence, an unsuccessful naval raid against Constantinople instigated by Yaroslav the Wise and led by his eldest son, Vladimir of Novgorod, in 1043.
The reasons for the war are disputed, as is its course. Michael Psellus, an eyewitness of the battle, left an account detailing how the invading Kievan Rus' were annihilated by a superior Imperial fleet with Greek fire off the Anatolian shore. According to the Slavonic chronicles, the Rus' fleet was destroyed by a tempest.
The Byzantines sent a squadron of 14 ships to pursue the dispersed monoxyla of the Rus'. They were sunk by the Ruthenian admiral Ivan Tvorimich, who also managed to rescue Prince Vladimir after the shipwreck. The Varangian Guard was also present. A 6,000-strong Ruthenian contingent under Vyshata, which did not take part in naval action, was captured and deported to Constantinople. Eight hundred of the Ruthenian prisoners were blinded.
Vyshata was allowed to return to Kiev at the conclusion of the peace treaty three years later.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rus'–Byzantine War (1043)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.