It consisted of a series of military actions waged by the Russian Imperial Army and Cossack settlers against the native inhabitants such as the Adyghe, Abaza-Abkhazians,[12] Ubykhs, Chechens, and Dagestanis as the Tsars sought to expand.

The leading Russian commanders included Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov in 1816–1827, Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov in 1844–1853, and Aleksandr Baryatinskiy in 1853–1856.

The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin referred to the war in his Byronic poem The Prisoner of the Caucasus (Кавказский пленник, Kavkazskiy plennik), written in 1821.

Mikhail Lermontov, often referred to as "the poet of the Caucasus", participated in the battle near the river Valerik which inspired him to write the poem of the same name.

They included ethnic Russians from various parts of the empire, as well as Cossacks, Armenians, Georgians, Caucasus Greeks, Ossetians, and even soldiers of Muslim background like Tatars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Uyghurs, Turkmen.

Between 1825 and 1833, little military activity took place in the Caucasus against the native North Caucasians as wars with Turkey (1828/1829) and with Persia (1826–1828) demanded the Empire's attention.

[15] In 1845, Shamil's forces achieved their most dramatic success when they withstood a major Russian offensive led by Prince Vorontsov.

The war in the Eastern part of the North Caucasus ended in 1859; the Russians captured Shamil, forced him to surrender, to swear allegiance to the Tsar, and then exiled him to Central Russia.