Crimean campaigns (1687–1689)

On 18 May 1687, a Russian army of about 90,610 soldiers, led by knyaz Vasily Golitsyn, left Okhtyrka on the Belgorod Line. On 2 June they were joined by 50,000 Left Bank Cossacks under hetman Ivan Samoilovich at the mouth of the Samora River where the Dnieper turns south. In the heat of summer, 140,000 men, 20,000 wagons and 100,000 horses set out down the east bank of the Dnieper. The huge force, which started too late and was perhaps poorly organized, could only travel about 10 km per day. When the Russians reached the Konskiye Vody river on the west-flowing part of the Dnieper, they found that the Tatars has set fire to the steppe (they had planned to use steppe grass to feed their horses). After a few days of marching over burnt land, their horses were exhausted, they were short of water, and 130 miles from their goal at Perekop. However, Golitsyn built the Novobohorodytska Fortress at the junction of the Dnieper and the Samara. On 17 June they decided to turn back. (Ivan Samoilovich was made a scapegoat and replaced by Ivan Mazepa.) ==Second campaign==

In February 1689, 112,000 Russian troops On 20 May they reached the isthmus of Perekop. Golitsyn was dismayed to find that all the grass in the area had been trampled down and that there was no source of drinking water north of the peninsula, thereby making a long siege or blockade impossible. ==Notes==