No, I'm not considering the stone age, the bronze age or any period prior to the creation of a some semblance of the unified Russian state because it is pointless to talk about the region being culturally & economically influential while being populated by the disjointed tribes of various ethnicity many of which disappeared from the area before this state was created. Neither do I consider extremely important the nomadic tribes that never seriously threatened territory noticeably beyond the border of a steppe belt. BTW, while these tribes had been a nuisance for the princedoms of the Southern Russia even after the "Kievan Rus" came into an existence, the river route "from Varyags to the Greeks" kept functioning. None of these pre-Mongolian nomads had any serious impact upon the development of the Central Russia ("Vladimir/Suzdal Rus") which became a nucleus of the modern state.
Moving from the bronze age to the meaningful times, the states of the Eastern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, Muscovite state) had been created outside the steppe belt and Russian Empire became one of the major European powers by the time of the 7YW, well before it annexed the Pontic steppes area so importance of the steppes within framework of this thread is highly questionable.
They had no effect on making the states in Eastern Europe less developed than the Latin Western world... My opinion and goal was to see the areas there in Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine utilize its vast and productive farmlands early enough to develop a powerful culture in ala China, that exceeds by virtue of this development, its nearby Western extremities of 'Europe'.
So also in your view, the Huns, Avars, Pechenegs, Scythians, Sarmatians, Khazars, Cuman, Qipchaq, etc.. Had no effect on the region of Ukraine, which is the most fertile agricultural lands in all for what we refer to as Eastern Europe and will be needed for expanding the agricultural package and population growth for this hypothetical civilization.
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