Only two commanders in history have never known defeat: one of them is Ukrainian

April 28, 2025

There were only two generals in the world who never lost a battle
/ Photo from open sources

In world history, only two generals managed to go through their military journey without a single defeat. One of them is the legendary Alexander the Great, and the other is a Ukrainian.

Which of the generals did not know defeat?

In world history, only two generals have never suffered a single defeat. One of them is Alexander the Great, who is unofficially considered the greatest general of all time. The second was the Ukrainian Cossack Ivan Sirko, who was elected by the Cossacks as the Kosh Ataman a record number of times.

Ivan Sirko possessed incredible military talent. During his life, he made 55 campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, fought 65 major battles and 179 skirmishes with the enemy – and won all of them. Under his leadership, the Cossacks captured such cities as Ochakiv, Belgorod-Dniester, Izmail, Kiliya, Tyaginya (Bender), Arabat, Perekop, Iassi, Cafu, Bakhchisarai and Trebizond.

Sirko won his first major victory in 1646 during the Thirty Years’ War. Then, at the invitation of the French, 2,500 Zaporizhian Cossacks under the command of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Ivan Sirko took the Flemish fortress of Dunkirk in one night, which the French army of Prince Condé had been unable to capture for five years.

The fortress, called the “key to the English Channel”, was under Spanish control and had extraordinary strategic importance. The grateful French erected a monument to the Cossacks on the shores of the English Channel as a sign of respect.

In the early 1670s, Ivan Sirko with two thousand Cossacks defeated a 10,000-strong Tatar army at a crossing in the lower reaches of the Dnieper.

In 1675, under his leadership, a 15,000-strong Turkish army was defeated near Chortomlytska Sich. Only three thousand Janissaries survived the night battle, while Cossack losses amounted to less than fifty people.

This victory is sometimes associated with the writing of the famous Cossack response to Sultan Muhammad IV. The very next year, Sirko led a twenty-thousand-strong Cossack army to Crimea and became the first ataman to capture the capital of the Crimean Khanate, Bakhchisarai.

The Zaporozhians write a letter to the Turkish Sultan / Painting by Ilya Repin

Sirko could have supernatural abilities

Sirko’s talent as a commander gave rise to a legend among the Cossacks about his supernatural abilities – he was considered a charakterist (a sorcerer, a clairvoyant). After his death, the Cossacks took Sirko’s withered right hand on important campaigns, believing that it brought military success.

Ivan Sirko is buried near Chortomlytska Sich – now the village of Kapulivka, Nikopol district, Dnipropetrovsk region.