Draft:Battle of Zhovnyn (1662)

The Battle of Zhovnyn was fought between Ukrainian and Moscow troops on 1 April (22 March) near the village of Zhovnyn (now the village of Zhovnyne, Chornobaiv district, Cherkasy region).

Hetman Yurii Khmelnytsky, trying to restore his power in the Left Bank of Ukraine, sent a 5,000-strong army led by Col. Ivan Bohun. The latter was to force the commanding hetman of the Left Bank of Ukraine, Yakym Somko, to abandon Moscow's protection. Somko invited 15,000 Moscow troops led by Prince G. Romodanovsky to help him.

At the first stage of the operation, I. Bohun's Cossack regiments recaptured Zhovnyn, Veremiivka, Irkliyiv (now all villages in the Chornobaiv district), Kropyvna (now a village in the Zolotonosha district; all in the Cherkasy region) and other towns in the Middle Dnipro region. However, they were soon defeated by the superior forces of Prince G. Romodanovsky near Zhovnyn. On 7 April (28 March), the Muscovites stormed Irkliyiv, and a few months later defeated Yuriy Khmelnytsky near Pereyaslav.

Despite the victory over the Moscow troops in the Battle of Buzhyn in 1662, Khmelnytsky failed to establish control over the complex military and political situation in Ukraine, and in early 1663 he gave up the hetman's mace. The Left Bank came under the rule of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of Moscow.

Literature

 * Смолій В., Степанков В. Українська національна революція XVII ст. (1648–1676 рр.). К., 1999.