Nalyvaiko Uprising

The second in a series of Cossack uprisings, the conflict was ultimately won by the Crown of Poland, but two years of warfare and scorched-earth tactics employed by both sides left much of right-bank Ukraine in ruins.

The vast, scarcely populated areas of what is now Ukraine (the name itself could be translated as Borderlands) had been attracting all sorts of people, from adventurers to brigands, foreign merchants, landless gentry, and runaway serfs.

However, the salaries were being paid irregularly and the basic source of income for the armed Cossacks remained pillaging raids on Zaporizhian Sich, Crimea, Moldavia, and other lands under Ottoman control.

Meanwhile, the army of the Crown of Poland, led at the time by hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, started a new campaign in Moldavia and Transilvania in support of Ieremia Movilă's claims to the Moldavian throne.

The following year Nalivaiko's Cossacks were joined by many runaway Ukrainian peasants and together they captured the town of Lutsk, where his men massacred Polish nobility, Catholic clergy, and local Greek-Catholics.

Nalivaiko eventually offered peace to Polish king Sigismund III Vasa, conditioned that the Poles cede the lands between Southern Buh and Dniester rivers south of Bratslav to the Cossacks in exchange for their military service and loyalty to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.