Vladimir Sviatoslavich, also known as Vladimir the Great, was the Rurikid prince of Kiev and ruler of Rus' from AD 980-1015. The youngest son of Prince Sviatoslav of Novgorod, he fled into exile in Scandinavia after his father's assassination and the eruption of a fratricidal war between his two older brothers. In 978 he returned to Rus' with a Norse army, defeated his surviving brother, and was proclaimed Grand Prince in Kiev in June 980.