On the death of Vladimir a reaction set in, and the annals of the Povêst amply support the statement of the Greek writer Psellos that the Russians were always hostile, and feverishly seeking pretexts for hostilities. Vladimir was succeeded by his son Svyatopolk, who allied himself with the Pechenegs, and also with the Poles, who had recently been converted to the Roman form of Christianity. He is hated by the chronicler no less for these anti-Orthodox alliances than for the murder of his brothers, the Orthodox Christians, Boris and Gleb, who were afterwards canonised, and in the Annals of the Povêst he is statically referred to as the ‘accursed’ (okayanny) Svyatopolk. Svyatopolk also murdered his brother Svyatoslav, while a fourth brother Yaroslav, hearing that Svyatopolk was plotting against his life also, collected an army composed of Varangians and soldiers of Novgorod, and marched against Svyatopolk, whose army was stationed on the eastern bank of the Dnêpr, and consisted of Pechenegs and ‘Rus’.

It would seem from the text that Yaroslav or his Varangian mercenaries fought somewhat reluctantly, for on the day preceding the battle Svyatopolk's general is reported to have ridden out along the shore and scoffed at the men of Novgorod, shouting: ‘ Why did you come here with this lame fellow? We shall make you carpenters to fashion our houses.’ Whereupon the men of Novgorod are reported to have said to Yaroslav: ‘Tomorrow we will cross over to them and whoever will not go with us, we will kill’ and the next day, after crossing the Dnêpr, the men of Novgorod pushed the boats out from the bank after disembarking, in order to ensure that Yaroslav and his Varangians should not retreat. Their resolution was rewarded with complete victory. Svyatopolk fled to the Poles and Yaroslav reigned in Kiev, after having been in Novgorod twenty-eight years.

Two years later Svyatopolk returned to the attack with Boleslav of Poland as his ally. This time Yaroslav had his voevoda and kormilets (’fosterer’, ‘provisor’) Budy with him, who is represented in the Povêst as having returned the previous insult which had been hurled at Yaroslav's physical defect by scoffing at the corpulent Boleslav with the words: ‘We shall pierce your fat belly with a pike.’