Near the site of the present-day city of Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi in Ukraine, a forces of the Zaporozhian Host and Crimean Khanate under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Colonels Mykhailo Krychevsky, Ivan Bohun, Maksym Kryvonis, Martyn Pushkar, Matviy Hladky and Mykhailo Hromyka with Tugay Bey attacked and defeated the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’s forces under the command of Hetmans Mikołaj Potocki and Marcin Kalinowski, both of them was captured in the battle by the Zaporozhian Cossacks and Crimean Tatars.

During a council of war, given the superior forces of the enemy, Potocki decided to retreat along the road to Bohuslav in corral formation the next day.

The retreat started at dawn, during which the Cossack and Tatar armies allowed Potocki's forces to pass until they reached Horokhova Dibrova, about a mile and a half from Korsun, at noon.

This proved to be disastrous, as Bohdan Khmelnytsky had ordered his First Polkovnyk (Colonel) Maksym Kryvonis (aka "Crooked-nose" or Perebyinis) to prepare a trap in this "swampy valley between two precipices", including trenches and a barricaded road.

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was left without a military commanders,[4] and Bohdan Khmelnytsky continued his uprising, marshaling his forces towards Bila Tserkva.