Grand Duchy of Lithuania also re-established the permanent capital of the Grand Duchy in Vilnius, presumably moving it from Trakai in 1323; some researchers, such as Maciej Stryjkowski, claim that Navahrudak was the capital of the 13th century state. Lithuania was in an ideal position to inherit the western and the southern parts of Kievan Rus'. While almost every other state around it had been plundered or defeated by the Mongols, the hordes stopped at the modern borders of Belarus, and the core territory of the Grand Duchy was left mostly untouched. The weak control of the Mongols over the areas they had conquered
Russians in Lithuania Russians in Lithuania Russians in Lithuania numbered 140,000 people, according to the Lithuanian estimates of 2015, or 4.8% of the total population of Lithuania. First early settlements of Ruthenians in what is now Lithuania date back to late medieval ages when the first proto-Russian merchants and craftsmen began to permanently reside in several Lithuanian towns. In the late 17th century they were joined by many Russian Old Believers who settled in eastern Lithuania, escaping religious persecution in Russia. The second, larger, influx of Russians followed the annexation of Lithuania by the Russian Empire during the Partitions of Poland in the