Editing Infanticide (section)

===Ukraine and Russia===
[[File:Russian woman throwing her baby to wolves (Geoffroy, 1845).JPG|thumb|''Femme Russe [[Child abandonment|abandonnant]] ses enfants à des loups'' ("Russian Woman Abandoning Her Children to the Wolves"). {{ill|Charles-Michel Geoffroy|fr}}, 1845]]

Infanticide may have been practiced as human sacrifice, as part of the [[pagan]] cult of [[Perun]]. [[Ibn Fadlan]] describes sacrificial practices at the time of his trip to Kiev Rus (present-day Ukraine) in 921–922, and describes an incident of a woman voluntarily sacrificing her life as part of a [[funeral rite]] for a prominent leader, but makes no mention of infanticide. The [[Primary Chronicle]], one of the most important literary sources before the 12th&nbsp;century, indicates that human sacrifice to idols may have been introduced by [[Vladimir the Great]] in 980. The same Vladimir the Great formally converted Kiev Rus into [[Christianity]] just 8&nbsp;years later, but pagan cults continued to be practiced clandestinely in remote areas as late as the 13th&nbsp;century.

American explorer [[George Kennan (explorer)|George Kennan]] noted that among the [[Koryaks]], a people of north-eastern [[Siberia]], infanticide was still common in the nineteenth century. One of a pair of twins was always sacrificed.<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Kennan |author-first=George |author-link=George Kennan (explorer) |year=1871 |title=Tent Life in Siberia |publisher=Gibbs Smith |location=New York<!-- |orig-date=1871 -->}}</ref>