The text recounts the 1159 war between Prince Yaroslav of Galicia and his cousin Ivan Berladnic, during which the latter fled "to the steppe to the Polovtsi" (Cumans): ...in the cities around the area of the Dunaj [Danube] River.
[1]In 1161, the Berladnici captured the port of Oleshia at the mouth of the Dnieper river, which caused severe damage to Rus' merchants.
[3] On the other hand Spinei contends that the archaeological evidence from that era does not reveal any typological or quantitative differences between the Bârlad area and the lands in the center and south of Moldova.
The Galician–Volhynian Chronicle mentions a group of "Galician exiles" led by voivode Yuri Domazhyrych and boyar Volodymyr Derzhykray who come as allies of Kievan Rus' during the Battle of the Kalka River which some interpret to mean the Berladnici.
[citation needed] A small number of historians see in the Berladnici's libertine lifestyle a prototype of the Ukrainian Cossacks who developed in the 15th - 18th centuries.