Bohdan Khmelnytsky
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Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a Ukrainian military leader and statesman who served as Hetman (commander) of the Zaporizhzhya Army and head of Ukraine from 1648 to 1657. He is a significant figure in Ukrainian history due to his leadership during a pivotal period of the region's political and military affairs.
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Zynoviy Bohdan Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky of the Abdank coat of arms (c. 1595 – 6 August 1657) was a Ruthenian nobleman and military commander of Zaporozhian Cossacks as Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, which was then under the suzerainty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He led the Cossacks to victory in a successful uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates (1648–1654) that resulted in the creation of an independent Cossack state in Ukraine.
In 1648–1649, the Cossacks under Khmelnytskyi's leadership massacred tens of thousands of Poles and Jews, with more handed over as yasir (slaves) to his Crimean Tatar allies, one of the most traumatic events in Polish and Jewish history. Under his rule of the newly established Cossack state, the massacres continued until at least 1652 and possibly led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, with the goal of eradicating non-Orthodox Ruthenian populations. In 1654, Khmelnytsky concluded the Treaty of Pereiaslav with the Russian Tsar and allied the Cossack Hetmanate with Tsardom of Russia, thus placing Ukraine under Russian protection.