[2][3] Initially the captured Polish soldiers belonged to the Cossacks' allies, the Crimean Tatars.

After the battle, the Cossacks paid the Tatars for possession of the prisoners, and promptly slaughtered the Polish captives to avenge Khmelnystsky's defeat at Berestechko in June 1651.

[4] The methodical executions were so barbaric that even the Crimean leaders were horrified, not to mention international observers such as German historian Hiob Ludolf (president of the Collegium Imperiale Historicum), who illustrated the murder in his nominal Allgemeine Schau-Bühne der Welt published in 1713 in Frankfurt am Main.

[4] The crime committed against so many disarmed prisoners had severe and long-lasting consequences for the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and for Ukraine.

[1] In the short term, it led the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm of 1652 to approve taxes for the purposes of raising new armies.