A Ukrainian saying of the time, "Від Богдана до Івана не було гетьмана" (From Bohdan to Ivan there was no hetman [in between]), accurately summarises the chaotic events of this period.

Yurii Khmelnytsky (1641–1685), young and inexperienced, clearly lacked the charisma and the leadership qualities of his father, as he showed during his attempts to rule (1657, 1659–1663, 1677–1681, 1685).

At the time of Bohdan Khmelnytsky's death, the Cossack state had a territory of about 250,000 square kilometres (97,000 sq mi) and a population of around 1.2 to 1.5 million.

Ukrainians comprised a frontier society with no natural borders, no tradition of statehood and a population committed to Cossack liberty or anarchy.

The state was weak and needed a protector, but of the regional powers, the Poles wanted to take the Ukrainian lands back, Muscovite-Russian autocracy fitted ill with Cossack ideals of liberty, the Crimean Khanate concentrated on Slavic slave-raiding and the Turks of the Ottoman Empire showed little concern for the Ukrainian frontier.

The Swedish Empire's territory remained still too far away during this period, and the Don Cossacks and the Kalmucks stayed out of the conflict.

When his acceptance of Russian overlordship in 1654 (Treaty of Pereiaslav) led to the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667), the Crimeans switched sides and began raiding Ukraine.

This led to a rebellion of the more democratic cossacks Martyn Pushkar and Yakiv Barabash, which was defeated in June 1658, a civil war that cost about 50,000 lives.

Faced with a revolt by several pro-Moscow colonels, Vyhovsky resigned and retired to Poland in October 1659.

Depressed by this effective partition of Ukraine, in January 1663 Yurii surrendered his hetman's mace and retired to a monastery.

When his invasion of the left bank failed, he returned to deal with the numerous rebellions that had broken out against the Poles.

He held frequent councils to cultivate the poorer cossacks and created a 20,000 man band of mercenaries to free himself from the starshina.

The thinly populated southern area (Zaporozhia) was to be a Russo-Polish condominium, but it was in practice self-governing, to the extent that it had a government.

In the fall of 1667 an Ottoman-Cossack force invaded Galicia and compelled the king to grant extensive autonomy to Doroshenko.

1668-72: Mnohohrishny and Left Bank Autonomy: On 9 June 1668 Doroshenko proclaimed himself hetman of a united Ukraine.

Turning to meet the invasion, Doroshenko placed Demian Mnohohrishny as acting hetman of the left bank.

Poland and Russia signed the Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686, which again recognized Polish rule of the right bank and removed the Poles from Zaporozhia, a major disappointment for Samoylovych.