Kuchum Khan's attempt to spread Islam and his cross-border raids met with vigorous opposition from the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible (reigned 1547–1584), who sent[citation needed] a force of Cossacks to confront him head-on (c. 1580).

[1] In 1554, he contested the throne of the Siberia Khanate against the incumbent brothers Yadegar (Yädegär) and Bekbulat, who were both vassals of Russia.

In 1582, the Siberia Khanate was attacked by the Cossack ataman Yermak, who defeated Kuchum's forces and captured the capital Qashliq.

After an unsuccessful attempt on his life by Qarachi Sayet Khan (Säyet), Kuchum was forced to move his horde to the steppe south of the Irtysh river.

[citation needed] In 1620 his son Ishim-khan married a daughter of Kho Orluk who was then leading his people from Dzugharia to the Volga.

For instance, although Abul Khayir's son was known as Vasily Abulgairovich, his grandson's name, Roman Vasilyevich, could no longer be distinguished from a native Russian name.

In 1686, the tsar decreed that the dynasties of the ruler of Imeretia in the Caucasus along with the Tatar princes of Siberia and Kasimov were to be added into the Genealogical Book of the Russian nobility.