In the later part of the 14th century, Grand Duke Vytautas and Dmitri Donskoi of Moscow started a rivalry for fertile southern lands, formerly controlled by the Golden Horde. As the Tatar power was on the wane, Dmitriy soundly defeated the Horde at the Snipes' Field (1380), only to be besieged in Moscow several years later by Khan Tokhtamysh.
As a result of the new conflicts within the Horde, Tokhtamysh was dethroned by the party of khan Temur Kutlugh and emir Edigu, supported by the great Tamerlane. When Tokhtamysh asked Vytautas for assistance, the latter readily gathered a huge army which included Lithuanians (Belarusians), Russians, Mongols, Poles, and Teutonic knights. His army met the Tatars at the Vorskla River, a tributary to the Dnieper.
Although Lithuanian army was well equipped with cannons, it couldn't resist a rear attack from Edigu's reserve units. Vytautas could hardly escape alive, many princes of his kin were killed, and the victorious Tatars besieged Kiev. "And the Christian blood have flown like a water, up to the Kievan walls", as one chronicler put it. Meanwhile Temur Kutlugh died from the wounds received in the battle, and Tokhtamysh was killed by one of his own men.
Vytautas' defeat at the Vorskla effectively blocked Lithuanian expansion to Southern Russia. His enormous state also lost hard_won access to the Black Sea. The political activity of Lithuanians was then switched to the fight for northern principalities, such as Smolensk.
The Mongol Invasion of Rus' was heralded by the Battle of the Kalka River (1223) between Subutai's reconnaissance unit and the combined force of several princes of Rus'.
In response to this call Mstislav the Bold and Mstislav Romanovich the Old formed a league and went out eastward to meet the foe, but they were utterly defeated in a great battle on the banks of the Kalka (1223), which has remained to this day in the memory of Russians and Ukrainians.
Crossing the Volga, he mustered a new army, which was totally exterminated by the Mongols in the Battle of the Sit River on March 4.
The battle which took place on July, 15, 1410, near Grunwald (Prussia at the time, now in Northern Poland) was hard and severe and the crusaders were utterly defeated by the united troops.
Sanhushka was a commander of 200-strong cavalry squadron during the famous Battle near Uly (near Chashniki), in which 10,000 of Belarusian-Lithuanian forces has defeated 30,000 Russian army of duke Peter Shujski.
He was wounded in battle, and sent to St. Petersburg in a cage all the way from Poland.
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