i'll share what i did during my yaroslavl run.
You need golden horde as enemy of muscovy. Ask support indepedance from Lithuania and golden horde, alter your diplomats to speed relations up. You got to start indepedance war before november 1446, or those country end up in a war and they won't support. If golden horde is enemy to muscovy, for some reason muscovy declares on Kazan or vice versa. In the end this cripples muscovy, since they won't take expansion ideas f they don't dow nogorod first (muscovy needs novgorod port province to take expansion ideas).
If you are lucky, Ryazan dow'd muscovy (since ai thinks they are weak) and rwhen muscovy is busy there, declare independance. With luck, you can occupy muscovy before they react.
The aim during independance war is the western vassal of muscovy that borders lithuania, namely Pskov... Hide your army there after asking military access from novgorod. Use 1k troops to direct the lithuanian army to the golden horde one. Wait until muscovy goes for sieging golden horde army, and reinforce battle. Hope for best. Without a good general, its likely you lose. Restart (did it like 10 times before i got a 5 shock general ruler). Don't chase their army, its suicide.
Then siege some key provinces. You need the province nw of Tver that borders novgorod, and the one south of it. Why? Planning ahead. More on it later.
During the war, make claim on Tver. if you are unlucky, Lithuania becomes minor PU partner and will simply abandon the war. So speedy occupations are of the most importance.
If you got those two provinces and one of the pskov provinces, peace out after obtaining occupation of muscovy. Ask for one pskov province and the two provinces nw and sw of tver. You can't core any of them, but that can be helped. Attack tver immediatly and make claim on ryazan. Annex Tver and declare on Ryazan. With luck ryazan declared on muscovy and their army will be gone. Make ryazan your march. They got crazy good march ideas.
Now, go for novgorod while they are in support indepedance war for sweden. What you need from novgorod is a connection to your pskov province, AND a baltic sea port. After this war, you can westernize off livonian order, once pskov province is cored. After this, be opportunistic. Make alliances with Poland, Denmark and Bohemia. This is of utmost importance, they are the best allies you can get (if sweden lost independance war that is). Attack golden horde for ryazan claims if they are weak (when they attack crimea or so) and prey on a chance to declare on muscovy or novgorod again with help of denmark PU horde and Poland PU horde. Attack livonian order and/or riga and/or teutonic order. You can vassalise livonian order in one go i think. From there, blob Ryazan to the black sea and integrate them.
Its of utmost importance that you let your allies deal with rebels during your wars. Don't waste your armies on it. As for idea groups.. Maybe humanism.
Long term game plan? Try to get a holding in the balkans. During a succession war for galycia (yeah Lithuania exploded because they were too busy killing my rebels) i trashed Venice with help of allies. Peaced out for one croation province on coast... After that, i had angle to conquer entire balkan with return croatia core wars.
Heck, the palatinate even joined in when venice was weak and i got their most western province. Could do nothing with the province.. But it enabled me to RM and ally both england and France. Thats right.
Meanwhile, don't forget the black sea region. Be opportunistic. Basically, play as russia now.
