Don Cossack Voisko

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Don Cossack Voisko, or Don Cossack Host (Russian: Всевеликое Войско Донское, Vsevelikoye Voysko Donskoye) was a frontier military organisation (a Cossack host) of the Don Cossacks in Imperial Russia since the end of the sixteenth century. It occupied the territory known as Don Voisko Province (presently shared by the Rostov, Volgograd, and Voronezh regions of the Russian Federation as well as Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine). In 1916 the Don Voisko enlisted over 1.5 million cossacks. It was disbanded on Russian soil in 1918, after the Russian Revolution, but the Don Cossacks in the White Army and those who emigrated abroad continued to preserve traditions of their host.