From to , Russia dominated the region with early military successes at Dorpat Tartu and Narva. The Russian dissolution of the Livonian Confederation brought PolandβLithuania into the conflict, and Sweden and Denmark-Norway intervened between and Magnus attempted to expand his Livonian holdings to establish the Russian vassal state , the Kingdom of Livonia , which nominally existed until his defection in That was followed by an extended campaign through Russia , culminating in the long and difficult Siege of Pskov.
By the midth century, economically prosperous Old Livonia [ 2 ] had become a region organised into the decentralised and religiously divided Livonian Confederation. Robert I. Frost notes of the volatile region: "Racked with internal bickering and threatened by the political machinations of its neighbours, Livonia was in no state to resist an attack.
The Order's Landmeister and the Gebietigers , as well as the owners of Livonian estates, were all lesser nobles who guarded their privileges and influence by preventing the creation of a higher, more powerful noble class. By the time the Livonian War broke out, the Hanseatic League had already lost its monopoly on the profitable and prosperous Baltic Sea trade.
A long bar of Danish territories in the south and lack of sufficient year-round ice-free ports severely limited Sweden 's access to Baltic trade.
Through its absorption of the principalities of Novgorod and Pskov , [ 17 ] the Tsardom of Russia had become Livonia's eastern neighbour and grown stronger after annexing the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan The conflict between Russia and the Western powers was exacerbated by Russia's isolation from sea trade. The new Ivangorod port β built in during the reign of Tsar Ivan IV on the eastern shore of the Narva River β was considered unsatisfactory on account of its shallow waters.
