250 Years Without the Sich: How the Empire Destroyed Cossack Autonomy

In June 1775, the Russian army under the command of General Pyotr Tekeli surrounded the Zaporizhzhia Sich. Without warning, without a declaration of war — at a time when most of the Cossacks had not yet returned from the Turkish front, where they had helped Moscow win the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774.

The Cossack leader, Petro Kalnyshevskyi, ordered his men to lay down their arms to avoid bloodshed. Catherine II’s troops immediately looted the Sich, destroyed its fortifications, and seized church relics and archives. By August, the empress had officially declared the complete dissolution of the Cossack organization — “for all time.”

This was not just a military action but a carefully planned imperial operation: to destroy an autonomous, democratic, military structure that stood in the way of colonizing the Ukrainian steppes.

Hundreds of Cossacks were exiled to Siberia. Kalnyshevskyi himself was sent to the Solovetsky Islands, where he spent 25 years in solitary confinement. Thousands of others emigrated and founded the Danube Sich in the territory of the Ottoman Empire.

Now, 250 years later, Russia is once again trying to erase Ukraine from the map — but just like then, it is met with resistance. Because the idea of freedom is stronger than empires.