Short answers, pulled from the story.
Vasili III Ivanovich was Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1505 until his death on the 3rd of December 1533. Born on the 25th of March 1479, he was the second son of Ivan III and his second wife Sophia Paleologue. His reign saw the annexation of Pskov, Ryazan, and the capture of Smolensk from Lithuania.
Vasili III captured Smolensk on the 1st of August 1514, after three successive siege campaigns beginning in 1512. The decisive third siege used artillery commanded by a gunner named Stefan, inflicting heavy losses until the city's governor Yuri Sologub surrendered on the 30th of July 1514. A 1522 treaty formalized Russian control of Smolensk, with the truce later extended to 1534.
Vasili III divorced Solomonia Saburova because their marriage, which began on the 4th of September 1505, had produced no heir after more than twenty years. By 1526, when Vasili was 47, he falsely accused her of witchcraft to circumvent church law, which did not permit divorce on grounds of sterility. He then married Princess Elena Glinskaya, who gave birth to the future Ivan IV.
Vasili III absorbed the Pskov Republic in January 1510, ending its centuries-old tradition of self-governance. On the 13th of January 1510, the veche bell that summoned citizens to assembly was removed and sent first to the Snetogorsky Monastery and then to Moscow. Three hundred of Pskov's most prominent families were resettled to Moscow lands.
Vasili III did not officially claim the title of tsar within Russia, unlike his son Ivan IV. In foreign diplomatic documents, particularly those connected to the Holy Roman Empire, he was called tsar, grand prince, or kayser by the Emperor Maximilian I. In 1514, Maximilian I implicitly recognized Russia's claim to equal standing, and that letter was later used by Peter the Great when he proclaimed himself imperator.
Vasili III died at midnight on the 3rd of December 1533 in Moscow from an infected abscess in his right hip, which he first felt while hunting on horseback near Volokolamsk. Two German doctors failed to stop the infection. Before dying, he took on the monastic name Varlaam.