The Battle of Vilnius was the first time a foreign power managed to capture a group of cultural, and historic structures on the left bank of what river?
Battle of Vilnius (1655) The Battle of Vilnius, Wilno, or Vilna was an attack by Russian and Cossack forces on Vilnius (Wilno), the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, that occurred on 8 August 1655 during the Russo-Polish War (1654–67). The Polish–Lithuanian forces under the leadership of hetman Janusz Radziwiłł were defeated by the Russian army of Alexis of Russia. It was the first time that a foreign power managed to capture the Vilnius Castle Complex. The six-year Muscovite occupation that followed resulted in a major depopulation and a decline of the city for many years to come. The defeat was one of the reasons Janusz Radziwiłł and several other Lithuanian magnates surrendered the Grand Duchy to Sweden at the Union of Kėdainiai.
Lithuania Lithuania ( , Lithuanian: "Lietuva" ] ), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: "Lietuvos Respublika" ), is a country in the Baltic region of northern-eastern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden and Denmark. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.8 million people as of 2017 , and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. Lithuanians are a Baltic people. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of only two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.