The Battle
On October 8, 1480 Akhmat Khan planned to bypass the Oka river from the west and thus avoid Ivan's regiments which were located in Kolomna, Serpukhov and Tarusa. This would allow Akhmat Khan to unite his army with Casimir's. Akhmat Khan's forces approached the Ugra river. The main Russian defense line ran along the Oka from Nizhny Novgorod to Kaluga where to Oka turns from north to east (the Ugra extends this line to the west from Kaluga toward Lithuania). At the Ugra, Akhmat Khan was met by the Russian army under the joint command of Ivan Molodoy (Ivan Junior, Ivan's son) and Andrey Menshoy (Andrey Smaller One, Ivan's brother). Akhmat's attempt to cross the Ugra river was rebuffed in a 4-day battle. The Muscovite chronicle says the Russians succeeded through the use of firearms, of which the Tatars had none.
Read more about this topic: Great Stand On The Ugra River
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“The Battle of Waterloo is a work of art with tension and drama with its unceasing change from hope to fear and back again, change which suddenly dissolves into a moment of extreme catastrophe, a model tragedy because the fate of Europe was determined within this individual fate.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)