Russian-Polish projects on joining or exchanging of military forces to struggle against Turkey and Crimea in 1660s – 1680s: genesis, history, reasons for failure

: The paper deals with the history of unsuccessful Russian-Polish military cooperation in the 1660s – 1680s. For approximately twenty years Moscow and Warsaw had been trying to join their military forces against, at first rebellious Ukrainian Cossacks and Crimean Tatars, and then against the Turks too. But all negotiations and attempts to realize plans of military cooperation by joining forces failed because of several reasons. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, hoping firstly to bring to obedience hetman Peter Doroshenko with Russian support, then tried to recapture invaded by Ottomans Podolia and appropriately wanted Russian troops to be moved there, not between Dnepr and Dniester, as it had been agreed before. Another thing that didn’t satisfy the Polish-Lithuanian side was a parity basis of joining troops (later of mutual exchanging of units), fixed in the text of alliance of December 1667. The Polish-Lithuanian army was becoming weaker because of long wars with Turks, Tatars, Cossacks and therefore needed military support, mainly infantry and artillery, more than Muscovite Russia, which had a more numerous army. That’s why Polish commanders tried to receive under their command Russian units without sending any soldiers and officers of the Commonwealth to the Muscovite army. So Russia finally refused to join its forces with the Polish-Lithuanian army and the new alliance of 1686 stipulated that each signatory was to wage war independently.


Introduction
In 1667 Muscovite Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth concluded an armistice at Andrusovo, that ended the long thirteen-years' war (1654-1667). By the terms of the treaty, Russia secured the territories of the Left-Bank Ukraine, Siever lands, Smolensk and Kiev (which was to be restored to Poland-Lithuania in 1669, but a provisional transfer appeared to be permanent). Historians since the famous study of Sergey Solov'ev [1, p. 156-181] have been acknowledging that one of the most important reasons to complete peaceful talks was the threat of Turkish-Tatar expansion on the lands of the Cossack Ukraine, and this troubled Moscow and Warsaw equally. The threat spurred Russia and Poland-Lithuania to look for closer ties, resulted in the anti-Turkish and anti-Crimean alliance that was signed less than a year after the truce of Andrusovo, in December 1667.
Thereafter both signatories several times confirmed the alliance, trying to elaborate more convenient forms of the military cooperation to struggle against the Sublime Porte and the Crimean Khanate during * * * The truce of Andrusovo had a clause that shaped possible Russian-Polish cooperation to struggle against the Ottoman and Crimean expansion in the Eastern Europe. The Polish-Lithuanian legation, that came to Moscow less than a year after signing of the armistice, was successful in its efforts to develop this clause into a treaty of the military alliance.
During the negotiations Polish and Lithuanian diplomats asked Russia to send an army of 40 000 (30 000 cavalry, 10 000 infantry) men to support Polish troops. Two armies were to join on the Right-Bank Ukraine to occupy those Cossack towns and villages that didn't recognize the authority of the Polish king and the Commonwealth. Herewith Polish and Lithuanian envoys didn't specify the number of soldiers in the Commonwealth army that would come to join Russian troops. Moreover, they couldn't ask the question of their Russian partners about possible routes and places of troops' joining. Muscovite diplomats proposed to support the Commonwealth army by troops of Belgorodskij razriad or polk (the military district that situated near the Russian-Polish border) and even unsuccessfully tried to replace the sending of troops by cash payments. The chief of the Russian delegation, boyar Afanasij Ordin-Nashchokin at first suggested to tsar Aleksej Michajlovich to agree with the Polish-Lithuanian conditions only partly, sending the 40 000 strong army down to Dnepr, to block the rout to the Right-Bank Ukraine for Crimean Tatars. After the next discussions, the Russian side agreed to send the 20 000 strong army to Kiev and to Zaporozhie. Arriving there, Russian commanders were to correspond with crown hetmans to establish a definite place and time of the joining. There they were supposed to ensure that the joint Russian-Polish army could not only protect Right-Bank Ukraine but even attack the Crimean Khanate [4, p. 98-99, 103; 9, p. 268-272].
The treaty of the military alliance was signed in December 1667. According to it, Russia was bound to send a 25 000 strong army (20 000 infantry, 5 000 cavalry) on the Right-Bank Ukraine to "clean" the region from Crimean Tatars and to support the Commonwealth army in bringing to obedience the rebellious Cossacks, who didn't recognize the Polish king's authority. The important condition of such an action was the equal number of troops that both signatories were to send for joining. The united army was to count 50 000 soldiers and officers. Each side was to supply their part of the army with food, field artillery, powder and ammunition, although mutual assistance in delivery of all these materials also was provided by agreement. The command of troops was to be common, crown hetmans and Russian voivodes should correspond and consult each other before acting [16, p. 729-730; See also: 4, p. 105-106; 9, p. 275-277]. As Boris Floria noted, the Polish project was the base of agreement; the Russian side managed to reduce the number of the joining forces [9, p. 276]. However, one more detail of the agreement is important. It was the Russian diplomats who firmly insisted on equal numbers of the troops of each side, on joining units on a parity basis. Such a position of the Muscovite side affected the whole evaluation of the plan in the future.
The number of troops, that Russia was bound to send for taking joint military action with the Polish-Lithuanian army was the most important part of its military potential. To compare: The number of soldiers and officers in regiments of Belgorodskij polk during the Russian-Turkish war 1672-1681 varied from 15 000 to 23 000 (not including the Cossacks of Sloboda Ukraine) [17, p. 35-43]. During the expedition to Chigirin of 1676 Belgorodskij polk (regiment) included almost 22 000 men. Totally under the Russian command of Prince Grigorij Romodanovskij were 32 000 soldiers and officers, and together with reserve unit of prince Vasilij Golitsyn, stayed in Putivl and Rylsk (9-10 000 men) the whole Russian army in the campaign of 1676 had more than 40 000 men (not including units of Ukrainian Cossacks of hetman Ivan Samojlovich) [18, p. 164, 172-173]. The next year 35 000 soldiers and officers were used to defend Chigirin before the Turkish and Tatar invasion; the whole field army of Muscovite Russia in the campaign had 58 500 men [19, p. 120-121]. Taking into account the widely known calculation of soviet historian Anatolij Chernov, that the total number of the Russian army in the second half of the 17th century was about 100-150 000 men [20, p. 450], we can deduce that sending to the Right-Bank Ukraine the 25 000 corps required large-scale mobilizing efforts, but wasn't an impossible task for the Russian military authorities. It would be completed by the troops of Belgorodskij razriad, that were mentioned by Russian diplomats during the negotiations in 1667 and were the main strike force of all Ukrainian campaigns in the 1660s and 1670s.
But it was even more difficult for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to bring an army of such a number to the Ukrainian scene of war. The Polish army had a maximum of about 30 000, the Lithuanian one -9-10 000 men in campaigns against Porte and Crimea in 1673-1676 [21, p. 94-95]. So 25 000 soldiers and officers that were to be sent to join Russian troops consisted of more than half of the whole army of the Commonwealth.
The December (1667) negotiations in Moscow showed that it was the Polish side that was more interested in joining forces. But events of the next year in Ukraine completely changed the situation. In 1668 the Left-Bank Ukraine hetman, controlled by the Moscow government, supported by the Cossack starshyna (elite), who were dissatisfied by the establishment of a Russian administrative system and tax order, as well as the conclusion of the Andrusovo truce that in fact had divided the Cossack Ukraine into two parts possessed by the Muscovite Russia and the Polish-Lithuanians Commonwealth, started the uprising against Russia, asking the Right-Bank hetman Peter Doroshenko and the Ottoman sultan for support. The Moscow government expected that the Commonwealth would help to suppress the rebellion, but those hopes turned out to be in vain. At first, in Much 1668, during the negotiations in Warsaw, Polish-Lithuanian diplomats promised Russian envoys Ivan Akinfov and Jakov Pozdyshew, that the Commonwealth would help the Muscovite army to put the uprising down. Russian voivodes in Ukraine were sent orders to be ready for joining the Polish troops. In July another Russian envoy, Aleksandr Karandeev was sent to Warsaw to speed up the march of the Polish auxiliary units to Ukraine. He soon returned empty handed, telling in the Posolskij prikaz (The Foreign office of the Muscovite state), that Polish-Lithuanian troops stayed far from the Ukraine and didn't hasten to go there. The third Russian envoy, arriving at the Polish capital by the fall, was told that the Commonwealth would support Russian army only in the case of redeployment of it to the territory between rivers Bug and Dniester, although by the clause of the alliance treaty two armies (Russian and Polish) were to join somewhere between Dnepr and Dniester. So it was an obvious pretext to avoid joining troops when Russia faced the Cossack rebellion that would weaken their position in Ukraine [9, p. 369-375; To compare: 4, p. 187-188].
During the next round of negotiations at Andrusovo -in Autumn of 1669 -spring 1670 -both sides accused each other of breaching the agreement. The Polish-Lithuanian side claimed that troops of the Commonwealth were sent towards Dnepr, but didn't await the arrival of the ally. As a result of such a sharp collision the new agreement, concluded in 1670, didn't mention any concrete conditions about the military cooperation or joining forces [4, p. 199-205, 229-230; 16, p. 831-832.]1.
In December 1670, facing the approaching war with Turkey, the Polish king sent a letter to the Russian tsar, asking him to join forces to fight together against the sultan's troops. At the same time the Russian government received information from Poland-Lithuania about a possible conspiracy between the antiking opposition and rebellious Cossack hetman Peter Doroshenko. This information wasn't true but it kept Russia away from any support action towards Poland-Lithuania. Instructions, drafted for the future negotiations with Polish-Lithuanian diplomats openly claimed that such circumstances made impossible any movements of the Russian army to join with Polish one [13, p. 74-78]. The Russian diplomat Ivan Chaadaev, who visited Poland in 1671, collected the information that showed to the Moscow statesmen the deep political crisis in the Commonwealth and even aspirations of some opposition leaders to look for agreement with the enemy of their state, the Ottoman Empire. In such conditions any negotiations about joining troops seemed to be impossible for the leaders of Russia [10, p. 8-16].
In autumn another Polish-Lithuanian diplomatic legation arrived in Moscow. It was to make all efforts to resume plans concerning joining troops within the defensive alliance between the two countries. At the same time diplomats were instructed to avoid discussion of those reasons that had prevented the implementation of conjunctio armorum in previous years [4, p. 262-263]. But the attempt of Polish-Lithuanian envoys to avoid the discussion was failed. The Russian side accused Polish-Lithuanian partners, stating that the Commonwealth did not provide any support to the Russian army at the moment when it was so necessary. So Russian diplomats were strongly against any resumption of the clause concerning joining troops. A new treaty, signed in March of 1672 did not include any such obligations. The prominent Polish historian, Zbigniew Wójcik called it the agreement of disappointed hopes [4, p. 281-285, 287-288, 296-297]. Poland-Lithuania concluded the agreement before the great war with the Sublime Porte 1672-1676, being in deep political crisis when the Diet was disrupted, and the treasury was empty. Boris Floria supposed that the decision of the Russian government to refuse military cooperation with Poland-Lithuania in such a situation was justified, especially if take into account that the Polish side didn't offer any concrete war plans and didn't show any readiness to move troops to join the Russian army [13, p. 78, 87].
In July 1672 when Ottoman troops were moving towards the borders of the Commonwealth, king Michał Wiśniowiecki asked Russia to join forces again. At the same time Polish and Lithuanian senators had negotiations with the Russian legation headed by Vasilij Volynskij, that arrived in Warsaw. Senators asked to send the troops of Belgorodskij razriad of Prince Grigorij Romodanovskij to assist the Polish army, but Russian diplomats refused [13, p. 81-84]. Therefore, the campaign of 1672 was completely unsuccessful for the Commonwealth, which lost the strongest fortress in Podolia, Kamenets.
However, in 1673 the Diet didn't confirm the peace that had been signed before in Buchach and the war went on. The Commonwealth again tried to gain Russian military support. In autumn of the same year, a Polish resident in Moscow, Paweł Świderski, asked the Russian government to send a 40 000 strong army, that was to join Crown troops near Dniester. It didn't match to the clauses of former Russian-Polish agreements and the Polish diplomat didn't suggest concluding a new one to establish some new principles of conjunctio armorum. Moreover, Boris Floria suggested that Russian auxiliary troops would be sent under the command of the Crown hetmans [12, p. 62].
In 1674-1676 negotiations about joining the forces were the most intensive, and in 1675 both sides were closer to reaching a compromise and creating a common army than ever. While the Commonwealth was continuing its war against Porte and Crimea, it desperately needed military support. That's why the Polish government, through the resident in Moscow as well as through special legations (Samuel Więcławski in 1674, Aleksander Kłodnicki in 1675) to the Russian capital and negotiations during Russian-Polish diplomatic conferences at Andrusovo, tried to get the Tsar to send a 30-40 000 strong army to the Right-Bank Ukraine and even as far as Podolia or Lvov. In the end of autumn Moscow was offered to send its troops under the command of the Polish king to the Danubian principalities, where he was going to occupy winter quarters.
The Russian government worried that if the Commonwealth was to be defeated, the tsar's state would be the next victim of the Ottoman aggression. That's why Moscow diplomats claimed their readiness to help Poland-Lithuania, however putting forward some conditions. At first the Commonwealth was required to pass a special Diet constitution, that confirmed the plan of joining the Polish-Lithuanian army and Russian troops at the appointed time and place. But the king's court adamantly refused to accept those conditions, because first of all, the summoning of the Diet needed much time and, secondly, king John Sobieski and his counselors were not sure if anti-king opposition would allow the Diet to pass such a decision. So the Polish side agreed only to a mutual oath for Russian and Polish commanders after joining forces.
In 1675 Moscow and Warsaw managed to negotiate a plan of cooperation between Russian and Polish troops in Right-Bank Ukraine, but Moscow still insisted that the big Polish army should come close to Dnepr and the hetmans of the Commonwealth should sign an agreement with Russian voivodes before they would cross the river. In summer troops of Belgorodskij razriad and Left-Bank Ukrainian Cossacks of hetman Ivan Smojlovich, strengthened by other units, came to the Dnepr near Kanev, but didn't cross the river because the Polish-Lithuanian side was ready to discuss the agreement about joining forces only after a river crossing and again insisted on a fast march of Russian troops to Podolia (to Bar or Miedzhybozh). While discussion was continuing, Turkish and Tatar troops finished the campaign and moved back to winter quarters. The campaign of 1675 was finished. In 1676 the whole situation repeated again: The Russian army came to Dnepr, and again Muscovite commanders refused to cross the river without signing a written agreement about joining forces.
Boris Floria, who studied all those negotiations in details noted that although Polish commanders really couldn't send to Dnepr any big forces, they, however, didn't make any efforts to begin negotiations with Russians. They even didn't send any officers to Romodanovskij and Samojlovich, authorized to discuss the conditions of joint actions. Moreover, Polish intentions to get some Russian units under its own command without any conditions became more clear. The Russians insisted on a parity basis of military cooperation didn't agree with such a plan.
In 1674-1675, during negotiations about conjunctio armorum in Moscow Russian diplomats drew their partners attention to problems of military logistics, suggesting that because of the complete devastation of the Right-Bank Ukraine it would be very difficult to deliver there big supplies of food, and that could impede troops' movement. As plans to join two armies faced problems again and again, both sides tried to elaborate a plan of separate actions, where Russia was to attack the Crimean Khanate, while Polish-Lithuanian forces -Danubian principalities. But those strategies also were not implemented for different reasons [12, p. 63-75].
The situation completely changed for Russia after the Commonwealth concluded the treaty of Żurawno in 1676. Now it was the Russian army that faced direct Turkish and Tatar attack, trying to defend Chigirin in 1677 and 1678 while the Polish-Lithuanian side didn't come to the rescue. The main efforts of the Muscovite diplomacy concentrated on dragging the Commonwealth, that gave up Podolia and the vast part of Right-Bank Ukraine, into a new war with the Sublime Porte by reviving the discussion of joint military actions.
The Russian diplomatic legation, headed by Ivan Chaadaev and Ivan Buturlin came to Grodno at the beginning of 1679 to negotiate a military alliance again. Based partly on the negative experience of previous years, partly on its own plans to wage defensive war only, instructions for Russian diplomats didn't contend a proposition about conjunctio armorum. Instead, Russia was ready to negotiate with Poland-Lithuania over the sending of auxiliary troops to each other in case of some critical situation on a parity basis (the tsar: 15 000 men, including 3 000 cavalry and 12 000 infantry, the king -8 000 cavalry and 7 000 infantry). Those auxiliary troops couldn't be used to storm fortresses and take cities, their roots had to be organized through populated territories to deliver food [22, p. 72-73].
Poland-Lithuania, having peace with the Turks and Tatars, put such conditions in response of those propositions, that hardly could be accepted by their Muscovite partners. The Polish-Lithuanian side asked about annual subsidies for its army (600 thousand rubles) and the tsar's participation in the offensive against the enemy with an army of 50-60 000 men. In January 1680 the legation headed by Ivan Pronchishchev and Emel'ian Ukraintsev arrived in Warsaw for a new round of negotiations about concjunctio armorum. As in the previous time, the Russian government was ready to conclude an agreement on condition of mutual support by 20 000 strong armies [2, p. 53-54; 22, p. 85-86]. John III Sobieski, the Polish king, who counted on concluding the offensive, not defensive, alliance was outraged by this position of the Muscovite diplomacy, emphasizing that he was decisively against the parity basis of the mutual military support. "What is the proportion, because we didn't send even one soldier for fifty Russian ones" ("Uważyć tedy co to za proportia, bobyśmy jednego żołnierza naszego za 50 ich nie dali"), the irritated king wrote to the Polish magnate Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł, who was sent to Vienna and Rome to seek an anti-Ottoman alliance [23]. The Polish side as before, in the middle of 1670s, insisted on the movement of Russian auxiliary troops (40 -50 000 men) to the Danube, and considered equal military mutual support as impossible. Russian envoys traditionally refused to sign such a treaty, referring to the difficulties of the way and problems of suppling the army. They also directed their partners attention to the fact that war in Moldavia would be disadvantageous for Russia, because if the principality was conquered, it would be controlled entirely by the Commonwealth, not by the Muscovite state. Negotiations were deadlocked, and Russian diplomats departed back to Moscow [21, p. 86-87].
After the departure, the Polish court didn't lose hopes of reaching some compromise with Russia in the case of the alliance. John III Sobieski suggested that Pronchishchev and Ukraintsev didn't sign the treaty because the Russians traditionally concluded all agreements with other countries in their capital, in Moscow. So the Polish envoy Konstanty Tomicki was sent there. The extreme conditions of his instructions acceptable for the Commonwealth were the payment by Russia of 200 thousand rubles of annual subsidy and the attacking of Crimea by Russian troops (it could be carried out by forces of Ukrainian Cossacks under the command of Russian officers and with Russian artillery units) assisted by the Polish cavalry. The king was ready to wage war on the Danube on his own, but both allies were to help each other in case of emergency (the Ottoman offensive) [11, p. 80-81].
The Polish-Lithuanian legation arrived in Moscow in August 1680. Konstanty Tomicki was assisted by his Lithuanian colleague, Dominik Dowmont. They offered to conclude an alliance on the condition of sending the Russian auxiliary corps to the Commonwealth (40 000 soldiers and officers; then the number was reduced in half). The Russian army, marching on Crimea would be supported by a 3 000 strong Polish cavalry unit. Discussing those conditions, the Russian side agreed only to send 5 000 troops to support the ally in Moldavia and Wallachia. Both delegations didn't reach any agreement and on 30 September Polish-Lithuanian envoys left Moscow [2, p. 77-80; 24, p. 302-303; See also : 25].
In September 1680, as the Diet was approaching, king John III Sobieski sent to members of the Senate special letters called deliberatoria, summarizing results of the Polish-Lithuanian foreign policy in 1679-1680. The detailed analysis of Russian conditions of a possible alliance made by the king revealed, that despite years of failed negotiations, the Eastern neighbor of the Commonwealth still remained the main partner that could support Polish plans to recapture Podolia and the Right-Bank Ukraine. Concerning recent negotiations with the legation of Pronchishchev and Ukraintsev, John III Sobieski considered their propositions -auxiliary corps of 15-20 000 men in exchange for the Polish-Lithuanian unit of the same number or annual subsidy instead of sending troops (200 000 rubles) -as unacceptable. He suggested that the exchanging of troops on a parity basis is very dangerous, while 1 million zlotys (1 ruble = 5 zlotys) of annual subsidy is a very cheap price for the safety of the motherland [11, p. 90-91].
Negotiations with Poland-Lithuania were for the Russian diplomacy a tool of pressure on the Tatars and Ottomans to make them more conciliatory in concluding a truce. It was signed in Bakhchisaray in 1681. The Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate recognized the Left-Bank Ukraine and Kiev as Russian territory, but Moscow was forced to retreat from the Right-Bank Ukraine with Chigirin.
So, as Russian diplomats were preparing to conclude peace with the khan in the beginning of 1681, another legation, headed by Ivan Zheliabuzhskij and Semen Protopopov had arrived in Warsaw at the time of the summoning the Diet . They offered a new project, that agreed with joining military forces on unequal principle, though a symbolic one. Russia was to send to the Commonwealth a 10 000 strong unit, while receiving in exchange only 9 000 cavalry. Polish-Lithuanian senators were not, however, satisfied by such symbolism and required sending 60 000 troops in exchange for 2 000 men. After the long discussion Russian diplomats stepped forward, agreeing to augment the Russian detachment to 20 000 in exchange for 10 000 Polish troops. This time the Polish-Lithuanian side rebuffed Russian conditions, suggesting that Russia, bounded by conflict with Turks and Tatars, would accept conditions that were more advantageous for the Commonwealth. Zhelabuzhskij and Protopopov answered that they were not empowered to grant any other concessions and asked to send an envoy to Moscow [2, p. 80-82]. So in April of 1681 Russian envoy Aleksej Korenev, accompanied by the Polish Krzysztof Gutowski set out to Moscow. Gutovski had a letter of Lithuanian Deputy Chancellor Dominik Radziwiłł to the head of Posolski Prikaz Vasilij Volynskij. Radziwiłł proposed to reduce the number of Polish cavalry that would be sent to Russia to 4-5 000. But the proposition wasn't answered, up to the moment the Moscow government received information about conclusion peace in Crimea. When Gutowski returned back to Warsaw, the Diet had been disrupted and the king's court had received information about peace between Moscow and Bakhchisaray. Russian-Polish negotiations were finished and Zhelabuzhskij and Protopopov went back home [11, p. 97].
But even despite the conclusion of the Russian-Crimean peace, the Polish king and his advisers still hoped that Russia, which was not satisfied by its conditions, was ready to continue negotiations on conjunctio armorum. The Polish-Lithuanian legation headed by Stanisław Niewieściński was the last attempt to conclude an alliance. He arrived in the Russian capital in December 1681. According to his instruction John III Sobieski wanted to get 20 000 Russian corps (15 000 infantry and 5 000 cavalry or 18 000 infantry and 2 000 cavalry) under his command with ammunition (from bullets to cannons) and food for the whole year, believing that infantry was more necessary for him than cavalry. This corps was to be ready to wage war not only in the field but to besiege and storm fortresses, including Kamenets. Russian officers were to follow orders of the king without any objections. John III Sobieski would grant to Russian soldiers and officers the same respect and protection as to Polish and Lithuanian ones, including the treatment of wounded and sick people. The Russian government would be bound to supplement those units by food, ammunition and recruits, bringing carts with all these things to Dnepr where empowered by the Polish king officers were to meet them and escort on the Right-Bank Ukraine. Niewieściński was to emphasize that Russian diplomats had promised already to send 20 000 troops during the last talks in Warsaw.
If the Russians demanded to be sent the Polish auxiliary troops, Niewieściński would offer to send, under the command of tsar's voivodes, a 5 000 strong cavalry unit. If Muscovites insisted on 10 000 men, as Zhelabuzhski and Protopopov had required in Warsaw, the Polish envoy would oppose it, using different arguments: 1) A large amount of horses needs a lot of food that is very difficult to find on the dry lands of the Northern Black Sea region; 2) Such a big Polish contingent would provoke resentment of the Ukrainian Cossacks; 3) The Crimean Tatars, getting the information about Russian offensive on peninsula would evacuate their wives and children out of Crimea and then move on the Right-Bank Ukraine, join Turkish units and attack the army of the Commonwealth; in such situation the enemy in Crimea wouldn't be very strong while the Polish king would need every soldier. However, if Russians didn't accept such conditions, Niewieściński would have to discuss the problem further, step by step augmenting the number of Polish auxiliary corps up to 10 000. It clearly meant that the Commonwealth was generally agreed with the Russian plan that was discussed in Warsaw in the beginning of 1681 (the legation of Zhelabuzhski and Protopopov). The Russian government would also promise to respect and protect Polish soldiers and officers of auxiliary corps, to care about wounded and sick people, to grant the safety of Polish troops while they would cross the Dnepr, and to deliver to them food after it, because it seemed to be impossible to deliver it from Poland [11, p. 116-120].
Stanisław Niewieściński arrived in Moscow in December 1681. At the first conference he proclaimed preliminary conditions: Russian 20 000 troops were to be exchanged for Polish 5 000 cavalry. But now this proposition wasn't accepted. Moscow needed a respite after the long and tough war. So negotiations were finished very quickly. Niewieściński even didn't have a chance to proclaim all concessions that his instruction contented [2, p. 87-89; 11, p. 121-123].
After the failing of the Neweściński legation there was a gap of one and a half years in the negotiations on any forms of alliance including conjunctio armorum. Even when contacts were reopened in 1683-1684 the question of joint military actions wasn't the main agenda. During the negotiations between Russia and the Commonwealth at Andrusovo in 1684 about the anti-Turkish and anti-Tatar alliance, the problem of concjunctio armorum wasn't even discussed; it was suggested that if the treaty would be signed each signatory would wage war independently. According to instructions for Muscovite diplomats, the Russian government didn't wish to negotiate the joining of forces or to lay down any propositions about it [8; 11, p. 229-262].
Nevertheless, during negotiations about the conclusion of the Eternal Peace in Moscow (1686) the Polish-Lithuanian side made another, and, as it appeared, last attempt to reach an agreement about conjunctio armorum, basing on those stipulations that were claimed by both sides in 1670s -beginning of 1680s, modifying them, however, in a more convenient way for the Commonwealth. So now Russia was to invade the Crimean Peninsula on its own, but also to send under the command of the Polish king some troops, mainly infantry to besiege Kamenets, without any mutual support actions of Poland-Lithuania. However, Prince Vasilij Golitsyn, who headed the Russian delegation and Posolskij Prikaz was decisively against such conditions remembering his Polish and Lithuanians colleagues difficulties in supplying food in the devastated lands of Right-Bank Ukraine and possible conflicts between Russian and Polish officers. The topic hadn't been discussed further officially, but a month later princess Sofia Alekseevna proposed to chancellor Marcjan Ogiński (a member of the Polish-Lithuanian legation) to send the Russian auxiliary corps under the command of the Polish king (20 000 Russian infantry and 30 000 Ukrainian Cossacks) and a 1 million annual subsidy instead of the Russian campaign against Crimea, but those conditions were not supported by influential boyars and members of the Russian government. Eventually both sides concluded a treaty which suggested separate military actions of Moscow and Warsaw [11, p. 420-423, 470-472]. The last attempt to join forces was the proposition of John III Sobieski that claimed during negotiations with the Russian legation arrived in Lvov for the sake of the king's ratification of the Eternal Peace. There was a plan to invade the lands of Budzhak Horde, that was to be supported in case of emergency by the Russian troops (20-30 000 men) [11, p. 578-579]. John Sobieski repeated his plan in special letter to Russian tsars but Moscow didn't support the proposition [26], the Russian government was preparing at the time the 1st Crimean campaign and tried to gather all the forces against the Crimean Khanate. So the real joining of the Polish and Russian troops was realized only during the Northern war 1700-1721 in a completely different political situation.

Conclusions
Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had been negotiating to join military forces almost for twenty years, but without any success. During the whole time both sides were changing their positions; those changes depended on military and political circumstances. By the end of 1660s, Moscow and Warsaw were equally interested in joining their forces. It was reflected in the treaty of 1667, that claimed a parity of the troops, that were to be sent by Russia and Poland-Lithuania to act jointly against the rebellious Cossacks and Tatars. But this situation changed very soon.
The change in the political and military situation caused changes of interest in both sides, concerning goals and methods of joining military forces. As Russian interest in joining gradually was declining, The Polish-Lithuanian interest, on the contrary, was only rising. Reasons for the latter phenomenon lay in the significant weakness of the military potential of the Commonwealth as a result of long wars with Cossacks, Turks and Tatars as well as in the military organization of the noble society of the Poland-Lithuania. The army of the Commonwealth had a very strong and well-trained cavalry, including the famous husaria, but didn't have a sufficient number of effective infantry and artillery units. Therefore, the Polish-Lithuanian army could rapidly and successfully attack Turkish formations in field battles, such as Vienna 1683 and Chocim 1673, but wasn't able to manage with storms and long sieges on fortresses. That's why after the fall of the Kamenets, Polish commanders and king John Sobieski himself became more and more interested in receiving under their command Russian infantry and artillery troops to recapture this and other fortresses of Podolia, as the diplomatic instructions of Niewieściński (1681) openly declared and Polish-Lithuanian envoys acknowledged during the negotiations with Prince Vasilij Golitsyn in 1686.
The unsuccessful war with the Sublime Porte 1672-1676 affected the transformation of Polish view on the scene of war where joining Russian-Polish troops were to act. At first it was planned that they would march to the Right-Bank Ukraine against the Cossacks of Peter Doroshenko and Crimean Tatars, supporting him, but later, facing Turkish and Tatar invasion in Podolia and Pobuzhie (lands near the river of Southern Bug) Polish-Lithuanian diplomats began requiring more and more actively that Russian troops were to join the army of the Commonwealth in those regions, which were very far from Dnepr and the Russian border.
The principle of parity in joining forces, included in the treaty of 1667, became quickly irrelevant for the Commonwealth. In 1670s Warsaw constantly required Russian auxiliary troops sent to the Commonwealth and simultaneously tried to minimize its own duties concerning conjunctio armorum, offering different options to exchange by an unequal number of units: 5-10 000 of Polish cavalry in exchange of more numerous Russian corps, that was to consist mainly of the infantry (20 000). At some moment Russia was even ready to conclude an agreement of unequal changing of military forces, but as Polish-Lithuanians diplomats asked in addition to an annual subsidy, the treaty wasn't signed. Then, after concluding peace with Crimea and Porte, Russia finally lost interest to the agreement, openly declaring it to Niewieściński in the end of 1681.
Generally speaking, the decline of the Russian interest to conjunctio armorum with Poland-Lithuania was caused by all the abovementioned reasons: inequality in joining forces; shifting the scene where joint forces were to act to the Southern West, far from Russian border, that meant the future campaign would serve mainly to interests of the Commonwealth; at last the unstable political situation in Poland-Lithuania, including a tough fight between the king's court and the magnate opposition. Besides that, the Russian government feared possible problems with food supplies on the lands of Right-Bank Ukraine devastated by long wars and conflicts between Russian officers and Polish commanders, that could have caused a high number of losses among Russian officers and soldiers in future battles. Trying to protect their military forces, the Russian side was ready to join its units with Polish ones on some additional conditions only, as it was in 1675, when the army of prince Romodanovskij and hetman Samojlovich approached to Dnepr, but the Polish-Lithuanian side didn't make any attempts to even discuss those conditions.