Mutual depredations were possible owing to the absence of mountain ranges; there were no natural barriers against sudden attack.
The openness of the steppe made the people war-like.

But this very openness made it possible later for Guedimin's pagan hosts, fresh from the fir forests of what is now White Russia, to make a clean sweep of the whole country between Lithuania and Poland, and thus give the scattered princedoms a much-needed cohesion.

In this way Ukrainia was formed.

Except for some forests, infested with bears, the country was one vast plain, marked by an occasional hillock.

Whole herds of wild horses and deer stampeded the country, overgrown with tall grass, while flocks of wild goats wandered among the rocks of the Dnieper.