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The Commonwealth attained its greatest glory when its Polish and Lithuanian knights and its Ukrainian Cossacks fought side by side.
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Timothy Snyder (The Reconstruction Of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999)
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Union of Lublin (1569), which created the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The borders between the kingdom and the duchy were realigned within the commonwealth, transferring most of the Ukrainian territories to the kingdom and leaving the Belarusian ones within the boundaries of the duchy. The union of Poland and Lithuania thus meant the separation of Ukraine and Belarus, and in that regard we can hardly overestimate the importance of the Union of Lublin. It would initiate the formation of the territory of modern Ukraine and its intellectual appropriation by the local elites.
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Serhii Plokhy (The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine)