The Uskuins are descendants of the Varangians.

The Uskhuins were brave warriors, they skillfully acted both on foot and in horse formation, perfectly owned the main weapons of that time: spears, swords, sabers, bows and crossbows.

These are combat detachments - descendants of the Varangians, and they were the military fleet of Veliky Novgorod. Novgorod Veche and Novgorod boyars charged them with collecting tribute from the vast northern possessions of Novgorod, as well as other dangerous enterprises.

• 1181. The capture of the Cheremis city of Koksharov (now Kotelnich, Kirov region).
• 1187. Novgorod earlings attacked the ancient capital of Sweden – the city of Sigtuna (about 30 km north of modern Stockholm). Russian troops thoroughly ravaged and plundered the city, which after this attack forever lost its capital functions.
• 1193. From Veliky Novgorod to Ugra (Zauralye) came the army headed by the voivode Yadrey.
• 1318. The barks and ears went to the Abo-Aland skerries and along the "Full River" (Aurayoki) climbed to the city of Abo (now the city of Turku), the then capital of Finland. The Vatican Church Tax was collected for 5 years. As it says in the chronicle, “all came to Novgorod healthy.”
• 1320 and 1323. The Uskhuins attacked the Norwegians, ravaging the Finnmark and Holugaland regions. Norwegian rulers appealed to the papal throne for help. A similar impact on the Swedes forced the latter to accelerate the signing of a compromise Orekhovetsk peace with Novgorod.
• The wars of the Swedes for the lands of Veliky Novgorod stopped for a while.
• 1349. The sea expedition of the Ushkiniki to the province of Halogaland followed, during which the heavily fortified Bjarkøy Castle (Norwegian Bjarkøy - Birch Island) was taken. It was a retaliatory campaign against the invasion of the Swedish king Magnus in Novgorod (1348) and 1349.
• The march of King Magnus was the last of the “crusades” of the Swedish knights to the lands of Veliky Novgorod. Then there was no serious military action in the north of Russia for over 100 years.
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• Then they turned their eyes to the Golden Horde.
• 1360. The Ushkuyniki, sailing down the Volga, made their raids on the Horde city of Zhukotin (near the modern Chistopol) on the Kama River and killed the Tatars. This act met with every approval of St. Dionysius of Suzdal, who throughout his life preached a campaign “on the impious Hagarians.” Khan Khyzr demanded from Dmitry of Suzdal, as the Grand Duke, the capture and extradition of these earlings. By the decision of the princes of Suzdal, Nizhny Novgorod and Kostroma in Kostroma, the boyars were drunk returning from the campaign, tied them up and sent to the Horde. Captives taken in Russia were sold in the Horde.
• 1363. A campaign to Western Siberia, on the Ob River, under the command of voivode Alexander Abakunovich and Stepan Lyapa. Most likely, the campaign has to do with trying to free his comrades sold into slavery.
• 1366. Novgorod boyars Osip Varfolomeevich, Vasily Fedorovich and Alexander Abakunovich crushed caravans between Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan. The Khan of the Golden Horde addressed the order to his subject Moscow Prince Dmitry Ivanovich (future Donskoy). Dmitry sends a formidable letter to Novgorod. Boyars of Novgorod reply with a reply: “Young people went to the Volga, but your guests (merchants) were not robbed, only basurman was beaten.”
• 1369. Hikes on the Volga and Kama rivers.
• 1369-1370 Ushkuiniki took Kostroma and Yaroslavl. These raids took place in connection with the enmity of Novgorod with the Tver prince, who planted his governors in Kostroma and the Novgorod suburb of Bezhetsk-Verkh.