retreat reached Ivan on 11 November. On his retreat, Akhmed raided 12 Lithuanian towns, including Mtsensk. His son Murtaza raided some villages south of the Oka until the Russians drove him off. On 28 November Ivan returned to Moscow. In January 1481 Akhmed was killed by Ibak Khan. Reasons for Akhmed's withdrawal Karamzin wrote "It should have been an odd image: two armies ran away from each other, not pursued by anyone", but it is now clear that the two withdrawals were independent. Ivan's motive is clear, but Akhmed's motives are a matter of guesswork. Casimir's failure to appear is clearly important. Nesin thinks that a major factor was the end of Ivan's quarrel with his brothers and the resulting additional troops. The impending Russian winter was a consideration. The longer the standoff lasted the more troops Ivan could bring up while Akhmed's reserves were few and far away. The Tatar horses, and the sheep they drove with them for food, gradually consumed the local fodder. There are reports of disease in his army. Akhmed may have thought Ivan's withdrawal was a ruse to draw him into an ambush, a common steppe tactic. Even if there were no ambush, he would have to fight an army in a prepared position, or try to bypass it. The Tatars preferred hit-and-run raids and Akhmed may not have wished to attack a concentrated army. The sources do not explain why he did not try to outflank the Russian line by moving west. His wise, but seemingly cowardly, withdrawal probably contributed to his death a few months later. Aftermath On 6 January 1481, Akhmat Khan was killed in a clash with the Nogais under Ibak Khan, a princeling from the Khanate of Sibir. In 1502, Crimea destroyed the Great Horde as an organization thereby removing the buffer between Russia and Crimea and leading to a series of Russo-Crimean wars that lasted until 1784. The effect of the confrontation is debated. Both sides retreated without fighting. According to traditional Russian historiography, the event marked the end of Russian dependency on Tatars overlords. On the other hand, several modern historians regard the confrontation as indecisive, and not having a significant effect on Muscovite–Tatar relations. In traditional Russian national historiography, the Ugra Standoff is taken as the end of the so-called "Tatar yoke". Some of the earliest Muscovite sources mentioning the event include: The Epistle to the