Trouble with the Rus'

The final Byzantine–Russian War was, in essence, an unsuccessful naval raid against Constantinople instigated by Yaroslav I of Kiev 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 a hyperbolic 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 Russian fleet was destroyed by a tempest.