The Siege of Pskov, known as the Pskov Defense in Russia (Russian: оборона Пскова), took place between August 1581 and February 1582, when the army of the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Stephen Báthory laid an unsuccessful siege and successful blockade of the city of Pskov during the final stage of the Livonian War of 1558–1583.The first detachments of the Polish–Lithuanian army, which in the previous two years captured Polotsk (1579) and Velikiye Luki (1580), appeared at the walls of Pskov on August 18, 1581.