On February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But this date was not the day the war began, as the Russian-Ukrainian war has been going on since February 2014, since the occupation of Crimea, which was later joined by the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Russian propaganda seeks to convince Ukrainians, Russians, and the entire world that Ukraine has no stable state-building and military traditions, no victories, and is not capable of defeating an enemy like Russia. However, all of these are ridiculous myths. Our ancestors, the Ukrainian Rusyns, fought against the Muscovites for centuries and won several outstanding victories. Let me highlight the most important ones.
Vyshhorod, 1173
Of course, it is not entirely correct to talk about the Muscovy-Ukrainian wars in the times of medieval Kyivan Rus, because neither Muscovy nor Ukraine existed at that time in a more or less modern sense. However, the germs of the future confrontation appeared even then.
Yuriy Dolgoruky, to whom Russian historiography attributes the founding of Moscow, captured Kyiv three times, where he eventually met his death in 1157. It is possible that he was poisoned at a banquet at the toll collector Petrylo’s house and buried in the Church of the Saviour in Berestove. The people of Kyiv disliked the people of Suzdal so much that they organized a pogrom against them.
In 1169, an army led by Dolgoruky’s son Andriy Boholyubsky captured and sacked Kyiv. In the fall of 1173, Boholyubsky himself, at the head of a coalition of princes, attacked the capital of Kyivan Rus. This time, however, the troops of the Kyiv, Galician, and Volyn princes met him near Vyshhorod and inflicted a crushing defeat. Six months later, the failed prince was stabbed to death by his boyars in his residence, Boholyubovo. Thus, back in the 12th century, an unsuccessful campaign on Ukrainian lands led to a rebellion in the Vladimir principality (from which the Moscow principality later split off) and the death of its ruler.
Orsha, 1514
With the beginning of the new period, the confrontation became much more prominent. The Grand Duchy of Muscovy already exists, seeking to seize all the lands that once belonged to Kyivan Rus. The Lithuanian-Rus Commonwealth seeks to prevent this intention.
In September 1514, in the vicinity of the Belarusian city of Orsha, a major battle took place between the Lithuanian-Rus and Muscovy armies. The Lithuanian-Rus armed forces were commanded by the Grand Hetman of Lithuania and Rus, Prince Kostiantyn Ivanovych Ostrozky. He was one of the richest magnates of his time, who turned the center of his lands, the city of Ostroh in Volyn, into a center of culture, and was a generous patron and defender of the Orthodox Church.
In the Battle of Orsha, Prince Kostiantyn demonstrated his best military skills. He managed to cross the Dnipro River at night, unexpectedly for the enemy, then withstood a Muscovite attack and carried out a deceptive maneuver: by feigning retreat, he lured the enemy into a narrow place where artillery was concentrated. The guns and arquebuses shot the Muscovites almost at point-blank range and forced them to flee in disorder.
Ula, 1564
This victory is much less well-known in Ukraine than the Battle of Orsha. This is because the Lithuanian-Rus army was led by military leaders of Belarusian-Lithuanian origin, Mikolai Radziwill and Hryhorii Khodkevych. Although there is a version that Khodkevych came from Kyiv Orthodox boyars.
This time, the Muscovites invaded the territory of the Lithuanian-Rus Commonwealth and were defeated. Their commander Petro Shuiskyi was either killed or fled the battlefield, but according to the seventeenth-century Piskariov Chronicle, he was recognized by local peasants, robbed, and drowned in a well. It is known that representatives of the Lithuanian-Rus nobility, including Prince Roman Sanhushko and Philon Kmita-Chornobylsky, distinguished themselves in the Battle of Ula. This victory thwarted Ivan the Terrible’s plans for further invasion, and the following year he launched a terror within his country, against his cronies, the so-called “oprichnina.”
Moscow, 1605, 1610, 1618
At the beginning of the 17th century, Muscovy was on the verge of destruction. The so-called “Time of Troubles,” a deep political and economic crisis, and the death of the last representatives of the Rurik dynasty. There were also constant wars with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was at the zenith of its power and on whose side the Ukrainian Cossacks were actively fighting. They managed to take Moscow twice and almost did so once more.
In 1604-1605, about 20,000 Cossacks helped Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich occupy Moscow and take the throne. Moscow historiography traditionally considers this tsar to be an impostor, False Dmitry I. However, it is impossible to prove this version 100%, as well as to refute it. Dmitry Ivanovich’s supporters recognized him as the legitimate representative of the dynasty, and he spent a whole year in the Kremlin as head of state.
In 1610, the Polish-Lithuanian army of Stanisław Żółkiewski attacked Moscow. It consisted of up to 4 thousand Cossacks. In July, they defeated the Muscovites at Klushin in the Smolensk region, and in October they took Moscow.
It was the moment of the greatest humiliation of the Muscovites.
The boyars deposed Tsar Vasily Shuisky and handed him over to Żółkiewski, who brought Shuisky to Warsaw on a cart, where the latter fell at the feet of the ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and swore allegiance. Instead of Shuisky, the Polish king Władysław became the Tsar of Moscow, although he never visited the Kremlin.
Of course, the most publicized campaign of the Cossacks against Moscow was in 1618, when the Cossack army was led by Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny. However, the paradox is that, unlike the two previous campaigns, the Cossacks failed to take the Kremlin this time. However, during the campaign, the 20,000-strong Cossack army devastated many Moscow towns and villages, and Hetman Sahaidachny even defeated the voivode Vasily Buturlin in a battle. The Cossacks contributed to the conclusion of the Deulin Armistice, according to which Muscovy ceded Chernihiv-Sivershchyna and Smolensk regions to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Smolensk, 1634
Having recovered a little, Muscovy tried to recapture Smolensk from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The city was besieged, but Hetman Tymofii Orendarenko came to the rescue of the Poles and Lithuanians, and 12 to 20 thousand Cossacks with him. They took part in fierce battles, carried out reconnaissance raids, and captured prisoners. Eventually, the course of the fighting turned out in such a way that the Moscow army itself was surrounded and surrendered. Of course, the Moscow Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov and the boyars were unsatisfied. Therefore, the commander Mikhail Shein was beheaded on Red Square.
Konotop, 1659
The most famous Ukrainian victory over Muscovy. But, as we can see, it was far from the only one. Four years after the Pereiaslav Rada and the March Articles, it came to a war between the Zaporozhian Cossacks Army and the Muscovy. Interestingly, even then Muscovy was actively using the techniques of hybrid warfare. These included provoking internal confrontation and a massive information and propaganda attack. The Muscovites tried to rely on the Cossacks or the officers’ opposition to depose Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky or force him to obey.
However, Ivan Vyhovsky had a powerful ally, the Crimean Khan IV Mehmed Geray. His army consisted not only of Cossacks but also of hired Serbs, Wallachians, Germans, and Poles. When the Moscow army of Alexei Trubetskoy besieged Konotop, the hetman went to meet it. Overconfident, Trubetskoy sent only cavalry to the battle, which Cossacks and Tatars ambushed. The defeat was complete, and almost all the captured Muscovites were executed by the Crimean Tatars.
Crimea, 1918
The 20th century, the era of the Ukrainian Revolution. After signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Ukrainian People’s Republic, together with its German and Austro-Hungarian allies, liberated its territory from the Bolsheviks. On April 10, 1918, the commander of the Separate Zaporizhzhia Division of the UPR Army, Oleksandr Natiiev, received a secret order from the Secretary of War to create the Crimean and Slavic groups to liberate Crimea and Donbas. The goal was to occupy the peninsula and take control of the Black Sea Fleet before the Germans, who had their interests in the region.
The Crimean group, which numbered more than 9,000 soldiers, was commanded by Petro Bolbochan. However, they failed to get ahead of the allies—on April 18, the German troops broke through the Bolshevik defense at Perekop and entered Crimea. Bolbochan’s group made a breakthrough from Chonhar on the night of April 22. The Ukrainians entered Dzhankoy after the Germans, but entered the main city of Crimea, Simferopol, on the morning of April 24, several hours ahead of the Germans. The next day, Ukrainian troops liberated Bakhchisarai, and advanced units soon reached the outskirts of the village of Cherkez-Kermen near Sevastopol.
These successes prompted the sailors of the Black Sea Fleet to raise Ukrainian flags on their ships and declare their subordination to the Ukrainian People’s Republic.
However, the Germans were very worried. Bolbochan received an ultimatum to immediately withdraw his units from the peninsula. It was useless to resist—the Germans had several times the military strength. However, Bolbochan was still going to break through to the Kerch Peninsula and gain a foothold there, relying on the support of the Kuban Cossacks. However, he received an order from Kyiv to retreat. By May 10, Ukrainian troops were withdrawn from Crimea.
Kyiv, 1919
In the summer of 1919, Ukrainian troops carried out one of the most successful operations of the revolutionary period: the liberation of Podillia, Eastern Volyn, the Right Bank of Ukraine, and the territories from Kamianets-Podilskyi to Kyiv, Shpola, and Balta from the Bolsheviks.
Three factors contributed to the success: 1) the unification of the UPR Army and the Galician Army against the Bolsheviks; 2) peasant uprisings in the Bolshevik rear; 3) the offensive of Denikin’s Russian White-Guard troops, which captured the south, east, and Left Bank of Ukraine and drew away some of the Bolshevik forces.
However, two Soviet armies (the 12th and 14th troops of the Red Army) stood in the way of the Ukrainian offensive, so the fighting was extremely fierce. The Ukrainians managed to defeat the enemy forces near Vapniarka, Koziatyn, Uman, Fastiv, and Bila Tserkva. On the evening of August 30, the Ukrainian offensive ended with the liberation of Kyiv.
However, the next day, the White-Guard troops entered Kyiv and a conflict broke out. Ukrainians were forced to leave Kyiv and begin fighting against the Denikins, who were only in favor of the ‘united and undivided’ Russia and did not recognize Ukraine’s right to exist as a state.
Zhovkva, 1945
In 1945, World War II was coming to an end. The Nazi occupiers had been expelled, and Ukraine was once again under Soviet rule. However, the struggle of Roman Shukhevych’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army for an independent and united Ukrainian state only gained momentum. The insurgents regularly inflicted extremely crippling blows on Stalin’s punitive units.
On March 22, 1945, there was a battle near Zhovkva in the Lviv region. A sotnia of Halaida-1 under the command of Vasyl Vasyliashko confronted a brigade of NKVD internal troops.
167 fighters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army against several thousand NKVD soldiers. The latter’s attempt to overwhelm the former by sheer number of people failed.
The insurgents inflicted significant losses on the enemy. After several hours of fighting, they managed to break through the encirclement without leaving a single prisoner. 40 fighters were killed and 18 wounded, including Vasyl Vasyliashko. Insurgent sources reported 480 killed and wounded on the Soviet side, including 38 killed officers. Obviously, these figures are exaggerated. However, the breakthrough of 3/4 of the insurgent forces from the encirclement in such an unequal battle is an undeniable victory.
Ukrainians have defeated Russians many times, in all historical eras. Our duty is to remain united and make every effort to win the current war. Our position is incomparably better than that of previous generations of fighters for Ukraine in the 20th century. After all, we have our state, an established political nation, and a large and experienced army. We also have international recognition and assistance from our partners. This historic chance must be seized.
Vladlen Maraiev — historian, and co-author of the History Without Myths project
Illustration — Vadym Blonskyi
Translation — Yulia Didokha
§§§
[The translation of this publication was compiled with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework “European Renaissance of Ukraine” project. Its content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation]
