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by Angeo34 2105 days ago
I thought this was obvious because of the Kiyv Rus
1 comments

If you're thinking of the Ukraine/Russian Origin story of Kyivan Rus, do you think Scandinavians settled in the Russia/Ukraine area? There's evidence there was trade between the various empires.

I don't think that's addressing the "DNA of the Vikings" (whoever the Vikings may have been)

The ruling elite of Kievan Rus was originally all Scandinavian, speaking Old Norse, and holding to their customs. This was still the case when they conquered Kiev. But then they gradually intermingled with the local Slavic nobility, switched to Eastern Slavic as the native language, and adopted the local names.

It's the bit about the names that's most telling, IMO. If you follow the Primary Chronicle (the earliest source on this), the first rulers of Rus were Rurik, Oleg, Igor, Olga, Svyatoslav, and Vladimir. The first four names are unambiguously Slavic adaptations of Scandinavian names: Hrorekr, Helgi, and Ingvar. Svyatoslav is an unambiguously Slavic name, but if you deconstruct it, its constituent parts are "holy" and "glory", which correspond to the earlier names Helgi and Hrorekr, respectively - so it's quite possible that it was deliberately constructed as a subtle translated reference. And then Vladimir is a purely Slavic name (Waldemar is a Norse / High German cognate, but it was derived from Vladimir, not the other way around).

The most likely version is that Rus was founded by Scandinavians who conquered local slavic tribes and were assimilated later.