The extension of Muscovite patrimonial claims to the Rus’ lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the direct outcome of a series of successful Muscovite wars against Lithuania in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. They began with border skirmishes in the 1480s. The first actual war was waged in 1492–1494, to be followed by the wars of 1500–1503, 1507–1508, 1512–1522, and 1534–1537—altogether almost half a century of warfare. For most of that period, the Muscovites were on the offensive, their advance checked for the first time in the early sixteenth century. By that time, the
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