Vasily II

Timeline

1. 1451–1453Moscow · RussiaIn summer 1451 Nogai Horde cavalry raided and set fire to Moscow's suburbs; Vasily II led his army to repel them, showing he could still command effectively despite his blindness. That same year he formally made his eldest son Ivan co-ruling Grand Prince, establishing the order of succession. In 1448 he had already appointed Jonah as Metropolitan of Moscow, deliberately bypassing the traditional approval of the Patriarch of Constantinople, a key step toward the Moscow church's independence. In 1453 his old enemy Dmitry Shemyaka died in Novgorod, ending the dynastic civil war that had troubled Moscow for decades and finally securing his position.
2. 1456–1460Moscow · RussiaIn 1456 Vasily II campaigned against the Novgorod Republic and won the Battle of Yazhelbitsy, then concluded the Treaty of Yazhelbitsy, which barred Novgorod from forming alliances on its own and formally established Moscow's suzerainty. That same year he brought the Principality of Ryazan under his control, further extending Moscow's direct reach. In his later years, as his eye disease worsened, he gradually handed state affairs to his eldest son Ivan, but always retained nominal supreme authority until his death in 1462, leaving behind a Grand Duchy of Moscow greatly expanded in territory and essentially unified internally.