It was one of the branches of the Gothic people who, after losing their own state in Ukraine, migrated to the Mediterranean, where they founded the Italian and Spanish kingdoms.

Part of the army of the conquerors consisted of slaves, the so-called Sakaliba (Slavs), recruited from Eastern Europe.

In the 11th century, after the collapse of the Córdoba caliphate, some slave soldiers became the leaders of the taifas in the lands of Portugal.

According to a Portuguese medieval legend, he was considered the son of the Hungarian king Andras I, the husband of Princess Anastasia of Kyiv.

During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), Ukrainian Cossacks took part on the side of the Catholic Spanish-Portuguese alliance against the Protestant coalition supported by the Ottomans and Muscovy.