Sviatoslav split Rus' among three sons, and within eight years one had died in battle with his brother and another was killed on the third brother's orders

Yaropolk, son of Sviatoslav I, ruled Kyiv from 970. His brother Oleh held the Derevlian land and his half-brother Volodymyr held Novgorod. Sviatoslav died in 972, and Yaropolk became ruler of all Rus'. He sent envoys to the imperial assembly at Quedlinburg in 973 and received a papal delegation in Kyiv in 979. In 977 Oleh killed the son of Yaropolk's commander Sveneld. Yaropolk marched against him, and Oleh died near Ovruch when he fell from his horse into a moat during the battle. Yaropolk took the Derevlian land and Novgorod, and Volodymyr fled to Scandinavia. In 980 Volodymyr came back with a Varangian force and retook Novgorod. He took Polotsk, where Prince Rogvolod was killed, and married Rogvolod's daughter Rohnida. He then captured Kyiv. Yaropolk fled to Roden and was murdered there on Volodymyr's orders. Volodymyr became grand prince and married Yaropolk's Greek widow. Her son Sviatopolk was counted among Volodymyr's 11 sons, but modern scholars think he was probably Yaropolk's. When Volodymyr died in 1015, Sviatopolk seized Kyiv (story 4). In 1044 Yaroslav the Wise, Volodymyr's son, had the remains of his uncles Yaropolk and Oleh exhumed, baptised and reburied in the Church of the Tithes in Kyiv.