Vasily III (Vasily Ivanovich), 1479-1533, grand duke of Moscow (1505-33). Carrying on the policies of his father, Ivan III, he rounded out the territorial consolidation of the Russian state, formally annexing Pskov (1510), Ryazan (1517), and Novgorod-Seversk (1523) and gaining Smolensk (1514) in a war with Sigismund I of Poland and Lithuania. In 1525, he forced his childless first wife to become a nun and soon remarried. His older son from the second marriage succeeded him as Ivan IV.