Cossack raids
| Cossack raids | |||||||||
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| Part of the Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe and Cossack naval campaigns | |||||||||
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks by Ilya Repin | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Zaporozhian Cossacks Don Cossacks Supported by:
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Crimean Khanate Nogai Horde Ottoman Empire | ||||||||
The Cossack raids largely developed as a reaction to the Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe, which began in 1441 and lasted until 1774. From c. 1492 onwards, the Cossacks (the Zaporozhian Cossacks of southern Ukraine and the Don Cossacks of southern Russia) conducted regular military offensives into the lands of the Crimean Khanate, the Nogai Horde, and the Ottoman Empire, where they would free enslaved Christians before returning home with a significant amount of plunder and Muslim slaves. Though difficult to calculate, the level of devastation caused by the Cossack raids is roughly estimated to have been on par with that of the Crimean–Nogai slave raids. According to History of Ruthenians, Cossack raids during Sirko's era were a hundred times more devastating than Crimean–Nogai raids.