Most interesting and largely a perspective that's new to me .
However I can't fit the statement I have isolated above from previous history I thought I knew .
Namely that Kyiv ( Kiev) was founded around 2000 BC or even before that and mainly by Scandinavian tribes that had come down the Baltic to around modern Lithuania and then cut inland .
What we call western Russia was barely inhabited in any civilised way and Moscow only really dates back to around 1300AD . In fact Moscow was essentially first inhabited by Kyiv rejects -- be they over exuberant Cossacks or the criminal rejects /outcasts / wandering gypsy like peoples .
Any ideas how the two apparently different views can be reconciled ?