The Tokhtamysh–Timur war was fought from 1386 to 1395 between Tokhtamysh, the khan of the Golden Horde, and the warlord and conqueror Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire, in the areas of the Caucasus Mountains, Turkestan and Eastern Europe.

The battle between Timur and Tokhtamysh played a key role in the decline of Mongol power over the Russian principalities.

The Golden Horde, after a period of anarchy between the early 1360s and late 1370s, briefly reestablished itself as a dominant regional power, defeating Lithuania around 1383.

Timur's attack on the cities of the Golden Horde in 1395 produced his first Western European victims, since it caused the destruction of the Italian trading colonies (comptoirs) in Sarai, Tana and Astrakhan.

[1] After his resounding defeat in the Battle of the Terek River, Tokhtamysh was deposed and replaced by Edigu, fleeing to the Ukrainian steppes and asking for help from Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania.

[3] Tokhtamysh and Vytautas combined their forces in the Battle of the Vorskla River in 1399, but were crushingly defeated by Khan Temur Qutlugh and Edigu, two of Timur's generals.

[5] In 1480, the 'Tatar yoke' over Russia, a reminder of the bloody Mongol conquest, was definitively shaken in the Great Stand on the Ugra River.