Russian offensive threatens Lithuania

Two threats at once

In summer 1655 Russian armies took Minsk and reached the approaches to Vilnius in early July. The Polish Army Museum places this offensive within the war already being fought with Russia. Swedish forces were approaching from the northwest at the same time¹².

Consequences for Lithuania

Hetman Janusz Radziwiłł led Lithuanian troops in a worsening crisis. The museum describes their later defeat near Vilnius and the city’s capture by Russian and Cossack forces in August. This July entry records the threat before Sweden invaded; it does not move the August fall of Vilnius into July¹.

See also the Kėdainiai agreements, one response by Lithuanian elites to this crisis.