Mengli Giray

…by the khan of Crimea, Mengli Girai, who had already placed himself under Ottoman suzerainty in 1475. Kazan fell to the troops of Ivan IV the Terrible of Moscow in 1552, and Astrakhan was annexed two years later. The khanate of Sibir (western Siberia), after a stubborn resistance, submitted to…

…in 1482 the Crimean khan, Mengli Giray, took and sacked the town. Almost the only survival of Kyiv’s former greatness was its role as the seat of an Eastern Orthodox metropolitan. A step forward came in 1516, when the grand duke Sigismund I granted Kyiv a charter of autonomy, thereby…

…the 1470s the Crimean khan Mengli Giray came into increasing conflict with Khan Ahmed of the Golden Horde and became interested in an alliance with Moscow against Ahmed and Lithuania. Ivan, eager to dissolve the connection between Lithuania and Crimea but not wanting to alienate Ahmed, stalled for time. In…