Below the last Galician forts of the middle Dniester (the Ponyzia, with Ushytsia the chief fort named in the 12th century), the river runs out of the wooded uplands into open forest-steppe and steppe, where Cuman herds graze in the warm months and the Galician frontiersmen fish, hunt and trade.
No fort of either side is known in this stretch, and the Dniester below it leads down to the Berladniki and the lower Danube. It is a standing frontier rather than a war zone: no Cuman raid on Galicia and no Galician raid into the steppe is recorded for 1198 or 1199, and Roman's winter campaigns against the Cumans come in 1201-1202 and 1203-1204 (later).
How things stand that morning
Quiet but unsettled: no fort or village of either side known; neither farms it.
Who raids here
The Cumans of the Dnieper and Dniester steppe (west of the Dniester they are the Byzantium sheet's, dnb) against the Ponyzia; in 1159 Ivan Berladnik and his Cuman allies attacked Ushytsia. Galician frontiersmen and the princes' men raid back.
Strongholds
Galicia: Ushytsia, and in later records Bakota, Kalyus, Kuchelmin and Onut. Cumans: none; they hold pasture routes, not forts.
Last campaign
Not pinned for the 1190s. In 1199 the Cumans of the lower Danube and Dniester raided Byzantine Thrace in spring and autumn (Madgearu 2016), not Galicia; the next recorded clash here is Roman's invasion of the Cuman lands in 1201.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Drawn from the extent of the 12th and 13th-century Ponyzia forts and the general Cuman frontier; no raid is dated to the winter of 1199-1200.
Sources and studies
- Bolokhoveni (English Wikipedia), for Bakota and the Ponyzia in 1241
- Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Roman Mstyslavych (campaigns of 1201-1202 and 1203-1204)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.