Russian conquest of Siberia
| Russian conquest of Siberia | |||||||||
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| Part of the territorial evolution of Russia | |||||||||
Yermak's Conquest of Siberia, a painting by Vasily Surikov | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Tsardom of Russia (before 1721) Russian Empire (after 1721) Don Cossacks Allied Indigenous Siberians |
Khanate of Sibir (until 1598) Daurs Yakuts Koryaks Chukchis Buryats Qing Empire (1652–1689) | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Yermak † Pyotr Beketov Vladimir Atlasov Andrey Voyeykov Ivan Moskvitin Yerofey Khabarov Vassili Poyarkov Dmitry Pavlutsky † |
Kuchum Khan Daur prince Guigudar | ||||||||
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The Russian conquest of Siberia took place during 1581–1778, when the Khanate of Sibir became a loose political structure of vassalages that were being undermined by the activities of Russian explorers. Although outnumbered, the Russians pressured the various family-based tribes into changing their loyalties and establishing distant forts from which they conducted raids. It is traditionally considered that Yermak Timofeyevich's campaign against the Siberian Khanate began in 1581. The annexation of Siberia and the Far East to Russia was resisted by local residents and took place against the backdrop of fierce battles between the indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Russian Cossacks, who often committed atrocities against indigenous Siberians. The conquest of the region was a spontaneous event organized by a group of adventurers; it is one of the early European colonial campaigns.