Eventually, after the rokosz forces were defeated in the
Battle of Guzów, Lisowski's fortunes turned low and he became
persona non grata in most of the Commonwealth and sought refugee with a powerful
magnate family of
Radziwiłłs. It was the Muscovy's
Time of Troubles and Lisowski could not pass the opportunity to try to make a profit out of this, as many other local
magnates and
szlachta already did, meddling in the Muscovy affairs. Soon afterwards he decided to support a pretender to the Muscovy's throne,
False Dmitry II. Lisowski was initially stationed near
Kleck. By the end of 1607, he moved to
Starodub with a unit of 200
Cossacks.
Polish–Muscovite War In the Spring of 1608, together with
Aleksander Kleczkowski, leading his forces – a band of few hundred ragtag
soldiers of fortune:
Don Cossacks,
Ruthenians,
Tatars, Germans, Swedes, Poles,
Lithuanians and who knows who else, he was sent to
Ryazan lands to incite uprising against
Vasiliy Shuisky. Then they set off for
Kolomna, and moved on to the blockade of Moscow. Soon however he was defeated at
Niedźwiedzi Bród, losing most of his loot at hands of
voivode . He reorganized the army and joined with
Jan Piotr Sapieha, but
besieged and failed to capture the fortress of
Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and were forced to retreated near
Rakhmantsevo. Then came successes (pillages) at
Kostroma,
Soligalich and some other cities. Around 1608–09, his troops, composed of 2,000 Cossacks, 1,000 "
Boyar's children" (loyal to
Dimitry) and 700 Polish riders, joined with forces of
Erazm Strawiński, defeated Russian
mass levy from
Galich and
Vologda, and conquered Kostroma, Galich, Soligalich.
Ingrian War He took
Pskov in 1610 and clashed with Swedes operating in Muscovy during the
Ingrian War. Lisowczycy were essential in the defence of
Smolensk in 1612, when most of regulars (
wojsko kwarciane) mutinied and joined the
konfederacja rohatynska. For the next three years Lisowski's forces were important in the guarding of the Polish-Muscovy border against
Muscovy incursions. In 1615 Lisowski gathered many outlaws and invaded Muscovy with 6 'choragiew' of cavalry. He laid siege to
Bryansk and defeated the relief force of a few thousand soldiers under
kniaz Yuri Shakhovskoy near
Karachev. Then Lisowski defeated the front guard of a much larger force (several times larger than himself) under the command of
knyaz Dmitry Pozharsky, who decided to defend instead of attack and fortified his forces in a camp. Lisowczycy broke contact with his forces, burned
Belyov and
Likhvin, took
Peremyshl, turned north, defeated Muscovy army at
Rzhev, turned to
Kara Sea, then to
Kashin, burned
Torzhok, returned to Poland-Lithuania without any interference from Muscovite forces. == Death ==