Do the Russian Tsars count as continuations of the Russians?
Well they thought of themselves as such,,, a lot of their culture was from contact with the Empire.
Their link is from the marriage of the “first” Tsar Ivan III or Ivan the Great. He married Sophia Paleologue who was the niece of Emperor Constantine XI, last Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. She eventually convinced Ivan to style his court after the Byzantium fashion and many of the palaces and government buildings still in use today were built by him.