The lack of secure borders meant repeated interruptions in economic development. Steppe nomads and other conquerors – Cumans, Mongols, Tatars for example, sometimes saw plundering as more important than fostering economic development. In the 16th to 18th centuries, the wastelands of the Wild Fields left much of Ukraine as an area of tentatively militarised outposts, prior to tsarist Russia's extension of its power into the region in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The lack of secure borders meant repeated interruptions in economic development Steppe nomads and other conquerors – Cumans Mongols Tatars for example sometimes saw plundering as more important than fostering economic development In the 16th to 18th centuries the wastelands of the Wild Fields left much of Ukraine as an area of tentatively militarised outposts prior to tsarist Russia's extension of its power into the region in the 17th and 18th centuries