The Battle of Konotop or Battle of Sosnivka was fought between a coalition led[20] by the Hetman of Zaporizhian Cossacks Ivan Vyhovsky and cavalry units of the Russian Tsardom under the command of Semyon Pozharsky and Semyon Lvov, supported by Cossacks of Ivan Bezpaly,[21] on 29 June 1659, near the town of Konotop, Ukraine, during the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667).

[22] During his reign, Bohdan Khmelnytsky managed to wrestle Ukraine out of Polish domination, but was later forced to enter into a new and uneasy relation with Russia in 1654.

[22] In 1656, Russia signed a peace accord in Vilno with Poland in violation of the Treaty of Pereyaslav of 1654, and increased pressure on the Cossack Hetmanate.

[27] The news of a Cossack-Polish alliance alarmed Moscow and the Ukrainian cossacks opposing Vyhovsky (led by Ivan Bezpaly) to the extent that an expeditionary force was dispatched to Ukraine in the autumn of 1658 headed by Prince Grigory Romodanovsky.

[33] The army came to the Ukrainian border on 30 January 1659 and stood 40 days till Trubetskoy negotiated with Vyhovsky since the Russian commander had instructions to persuade the Cossacks.

After that, the supreme military commander Prince Aleksey Trubetskoy decided to finish off the small 4,000 garrison of Konotop Castle held by Cossacks of Hulyanytsky before proceeding in his pursuit of Vyhovsky.

[35] Instead of a quick campaign the siege dragged on for 70 days and gave Vyhovsky the much-needed time to prepare for the battle with the Russian army.

By agreement with the Tatars, the Khan Mehmed IV Giray, at the head of his 30,000-strong army, made his way towards Konotop in early summer of 1659, as did the 4000-man Polish detachment with the support of Serbian, Moldavian and German mercenaries.

By 24 June 1659 Vyhovsky and his allies approached the area and defeated a small reconnaissance detachment of the invader's army near the village of Shapovalivka, several kilometers south-west of Konotop.

Having discovered the trap, Prince Semen Pozharsky ordered retreat; but his heavy cavalry got bogged down in the soggy ground created from the flooding the night before.

[citation needed] Having learned about the defeat of Pozharsky's army, Trubetskoy ordered the siege of Konotop lifted and started his retreat from Ukraine.

A prominent Russian historian of the 19th century, Sergey Solovyov, described it this way: The bloom of Moscow's cavalry, troops that happily accomplished campaigns of year 54 and 55 have perished in one day – the victors got only about 5000 captive.

[38] The overall Russian casualties revealed by 17th-century archive documents of the Ambassadors’ Chancellery were 4,769 men: 2,830 of L’vov’s and Pozharskii’s forces sent across the Sosnovka and 1,896 lost during the attacks on Trubetskoy’s wagenburg.

[49] In order to have a 150,000-men-strong army at Konotop, Russia would have had to send all of its military forces to one place, leaving no troops behind, since the overall strength of the Russian armed forces according to the annual estimate of 1651 was 133,210 men in total, including 39,408 noblemen and boyars' sons, 44,486 streltsy troops, 21,124 Cossacks, 8,107 dragoons, 9113 Tatars, 2371 Ukrainians, 4245 artillerymen, 2707 foreigners, and Zasechnaya guard.

[51] Furthermore, documentary evidence makes it clear that Romodanovsky, Buturlin,[52] Matveyev, and Zmeyev[53] survived the battle and continued to serve the Russian Crown for many years.

These documents are regarded as most reliable and accurate, as they were used in the interests of financial control and supply of the armed forces, carefully checked by a state commission and presented to the Tsar himself; attempts to distort the data were prohibited by law.

When on one occasion Prince Ivan Lobanov-Rostovsky made an attempt to downplay his casualties in one of these documents, it was immediately noticed by the commission and perceived as an extraordinary offense by Tsar Alexis.

Hetman Vyhovsky and his allies had only been able to capture a few of the Ukrainian towns held by his opponents, when the first bad news arrived: Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Host led by Ivan Sirko attacked Crimean outposts in the south, and Khan Giray was forced to leave him for his country.

His defeat is largely attributed to his alliance with the very unpopular Poles and his inability to seek support among all the strata of the Ukrainian population and not just among the rich Cossack elite, who were willing to betray him at every opportunity either to Moscow or Warsaw.

[62] Recordings of this work have been released by the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus with the renowned Russian singer Michael Minsky and also by the Kiev symphony.