The Wild Fields is a historical term used in the Polish–Lithuanian documents of the 16th to 18th centuries to refer to the Pontic steppe in the territory of present-day Eastern and Southern Ukraine and Western Russia, north of the Black Sea and Azov Sea. It was the traditional name for the Black Sea steppes in the 16th and 17th centuries. In a narrow sense, it is the historical name for the demarcated and sparsely populated Black Sea steppes between the middle and lower reaches of the Dniester in the west, the lower reaches of the Don and the Siverskyi Donets in the east, from the left tributary of the Dnipro — Samara, and the upper reaches of the Southern Bug — Syniukha and Ingul in the north, to the Black and Azov Seas and Crimea in the south.
Kamyana Mohyla in Ukraine
Delineatio Generalis Camporum Desertorum vulgo Ukraina (General sketch of devastated fields commonly known as Ukraina)
Partition of Cossack Hetmanate after the Truce of Andrusovo (1667)
Typus Generalis Ukrainae sive Palatinatuum Podoliae, Kioviensis et Braczlaviensis terras nova delineatione exhibens, 1681
Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus'
The Mongol Empire invaded and conquered much of Kievan Rus' in the mid-13th century, sacking numerous cities including the largest such as Kiev and Chernigov. The Mongol siege and sack of Kiev in 1240 is generally held to mark the end of Kievan Rus' as a distinct, singular polity. Many other Rus' principalities and urban centres in the northwest and southwest escaped destruction or suffered little to no damage from the Mongol invasion, including Galicia-Volhynia, Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Polotsk, Vitebsk, and probably Rostov and Uglich.
The Mongol invasion of Europe, 1236–1242
The sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan in February 1238; miniature from the 16th-century chronicle.
Prince Michael of Chernigov was passed between fires in accordance with ancient Turco-Mongol tradition. Batu Khan ordered him to prostrate himself before the tablets of Genghis Khan. The Mongols stabbed him to death for his refusal to do obeisance to Genghis Khan's shrine.