Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars
Before the first series of wars in the 15th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania controlled vast stretches of Eastern European land, from Kiev to Mozhaysk, following the collapse of Kievan Rus' after the Mongol invasions.
[3] The Grand Duchy of Moscow and Lithuania had fought each other since the reign of Gediminas, who defeated a coalition of Ruthenian princes in the Battle on the Irpin River and seized Kiev, the former capital of Kievan Rus'.
[5][6] Conflicts resumed during the reign of Dmitry's son Vasily I, who was married to Sophia, the sole daughter of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas the Great.
The supremacy of the Golden Horde, known as the "Mongol Yoke," ended in 1480 with the defeat of Ahmed Khan bin Küchük in the Great Stand on the Ugra River.
Around 1486–1487, territories along the ill-defined Lithuanian–Muscovite border in the upper reaches of the Oka River were under attack by Moscow[9] and its ally Meñli I Giray, Khan of Crimea.
In August 1492, without declaring war, Ivan III began large military actions: he captured and burned Mtsensk, Lyubutsk, Serpeysk, and Meshchovsk;[11] raided Mosalsk; and attacked the territory of the Dukes of Vyazma.
[12] Orthodox nobles began switching sides to Moscow as it promised better protection from military raids and an end to religious discrimination by Catholic Lithuanians.
The agreement marked the first Lithuanian territorial losses to Moscow: the Principality of Vyazma and a sizable region in the upper reaches of the Oka River.
[18] In June 1501, John I Albert, King of Poland, died leaving his brother Alexander Jagiellon, Grand Duke of Lithuania, the strongest candidate for the Polish throne.
Polish nobles, including Bishop Erazm Ciołek and Cardinal Frederick Jagiellon, discussed the issue of royal divorce.
In 1502, Ivan III organized a campaign to capture Smolensk, but the city withstood the siege as Muscovites chose a poor strategy and had insufficient artillery.
Alexander asked Vladislaus II of Hungary to act as the mediator, and a six-year truce was concluded on the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) in 1503.
[22] The Grand Duchy of Lithuania lost approximately 210,000 square kilometres (81,000 sq mi),[13] or a third of its territory: Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk, Starodub, and lands around the upper Oka River.
The concept of the sovereign of all Russia, put forward by Ivan III, did not leave room for the existence of the Lithuanian state".
[7] During the Muscovite–Lithuanian War of 1503, the Crimean Tatar armies pillaged the Lithuania's southern towns of Slutsk, Kletsk, and Nyasvizh and even threatened the capital city of Vilnius.
[25] The war was intertwined with a rebellion by Michael Glinski, Court Marshal of Lithuania, a favorite of Alexander Jagiellon and a man of opportunity.
[28] Glinski then organized a rebellion, murdered Zabrzeziński in February 1508, and declared himself the defender of the Orthodox faith (even though he was a Catholic of Mongol descent).
[33] At the same time, Albert of Prussia became the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order and was unwilling to acknowledge Poland's suzerainty as required by the Second Peace of Thorn (1466).
[33] In December 1512, Moscow invaded the Grand Duchy of Lithuania seeking to capture Smolensk, a major trading center.
[43] Khan of Crimea, Mehmed I Giray carried out a ruinous attack on the Moscow principality, resulting in a commitment from the grand prince to pay tribute.
[49] In the summer of 1534, Grand Hetman Jerzy Radziwiłł and the Tatars devastated the area around Chernigov, Novgorod Seversk, Radogoshch, Starodub, and Briansk.
[51] Lithuania and Russia negotiated a five-year truce, without prisoner exchange, in which Homel stayed under the king's control, while Moscow kept Sebezh and Zavoloche.
The tsar sought to gather the ethnically Ruthenian lands of the former Kievan Rus', engaging with other powers around the Baltic Sea in the Livonian War.
Eventually, the 1570 ceasefire divided Livonia between the participants, with Lithuania controlling Riga and Russians expanding access to the Baltic Sea by taking hold of Narva.
Eventually, in 1569, after Sigismund II Augustus transferred significant territories of the Grand Duchy to Poland and after months of hard negotiations, Lithuanians partially accepted Polish demands and entered in alliance with the Union of Lublin, forming the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In 1581 the Lithuanians burnt down Staraya Russa,[54] with a 100,000-strong army Stefan Batory started the Siege of Pskov but failed to take the fortress.
The prolonged and inconclusive siege led to negotiations, which with the aid of papal legate Antonio Possevino ended in the peace of Jam Zapolski in which the Tsar renounced his claims to Livonia and Polotsk but conceded no core Russian territories.
