The Crimean Khanate, which arose as a fragment of the Golden Horde in 1443, by the beginning of the 17th century. remained the only post-Horde state formation adjacent to the territory of the Muscovy and not included in its structure.
In pre-Petrine times, Russia's relations with the Crimean Khanate were, as a rule, unfriendly. The only exception is the allied relations between Moscow and Crimea during the reign of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III the Great (1462–1505).
The Big Horde after standing on the Ugra River in 1480, as well as the Astrakhan, Kazakh, Siberian and Uzbek khanates and the state of Ak-Koyunlu, due to their remoteness, did not play an important role in the foreign policy of Ivan III. With three other Muslim states - the Crimean Khanate, the Nogai Horde and the Ottoman Empire - Ivan III kept the peace. The Crimean Khan Khadzhi-Girey (1443-1466), who was also threatened by the Big Horde for some time, and Ivan III exchanged messages in 1462, thus establishing friendly relations.
In 1474 the ambassador N. V. Beklemishev, who signed an agreement on the preservation of friendship on behalf of the Moscow prince, according to which Khan Mengli-Girey (1467-1515, with interruptions) became a loyal ally of Ivan III both against the Great Horde and against Lithuania. In 1480, the ambassador, Prince I. I. Zvenigorodsky coordinated with Mengli-Giray Russian-Tatar actions against common enemies. In the same year, the Crimean Khan raided the possessions of the Lithuanian state, which prevented the Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir IV Jagiellonchik (1445-1492) from helping the Khan of the Great Horde Akhmat (1459-1481), who moved to Russia.
The nature of relations between the Crimean Khanate and Moscow changed with the death of Ivan III, and changed dramatically after the annexation of Ivan IV the Terrible (1547-1582) to his kingdom as a result of the military campaigns of the Kazan Khanate in 1552 and the Astrakhan Khanate in 1556. Already in the first decade of the XVI v. At times, the annual attacks on the outskirts of the Moscow state by the detachments of the Crimean khans begin, sometimes in alliance with the Lithuanians. Direct support to the Crimean Khanate was provided by the Ottoman Empire, whose vassals the Crimean khans were from 1475.
The Bakhchisarai Peace Treaty, concluded in January 1681, ended the war between Russia and Turkey for the possession of Western Ukraine. The most important conditions of this agreement were as follows: 1) a 20-year-old peace was concluded; 2) Dnieper was recognized as a border; 3) for 20 years, both sides did not have the right to build and restore fortifications and cities between the rivers Southern Bug and Dnieper and in general to populate this space and accept defectors; 4) the Tatars had the right to roam and hunt in the steppe area on both sides of the Dnieper and near the rivers, and the Cossacks for fishing and hunting could swim along the Dnieper and its tributaries up to the Black Sea; 5) Kiev, Vasilkov, Tripoli, Staiki, Dedovshchina and Radomyshl remained with Russia; 6) Zaporozhye Cossacks were recognized as Russian subjects.
In 1686 Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth signed a treaty “On Eternal Peace”. Peace with the western neighbor was bought by the commitment to support him in the war with Turkey. Soon Tsarevna Sophia (1682-1689), who was regent under the young princes Ivan and Peter, notified Khan Selim-Girey I (1671-1704, with interruptions) that the Russian side had entered into an alliance with the Commonwealth. After that, Tatar detachments appeared on the borders of Little Russia. The Bakhchisarai peace, which had been in effect for a little over five years, was violated. If it had been executed in full, then Peter I (1689-1725) would have had the opportunity by 1700 to gather with large forces against the army of the Swedish king Charles XII (1697-1718) and, possibly, would have avoided defeat at Narva. Instead, the king spent resources in the revanchist Azov campaigns of 1695 and 1696.
Peter I, after the successes achieved in the Northern War (1700-1721), including victories in the battle at Lesnaya (1708) and the Battle of Poltava (1709), could not help but turn his attention to the Black Sea region. The king's geopolitical aspirations did not appear only to satisfy his ambitions. Without the annexation of the Crimea, its complete pacification was impossible, since Istanbul constantly pushed its vassals to new provocations. And this, in turn, made it impossible to settle and develop the vast fertile territories of the Chernozem region.
According to V. A. Artamonov, “the topic of negotiations on the transfer of the Crimea to Russian citizenship in the first half of the Northern War of 1700–1721. nobody, except the Polish historian Y. Feldman, who in his book cited two lengthy extracts from the report of the Saxon ambassador in St. Petersburg Loss to August II, did not touch upon. Locs reported on the tsar's preparation of a secret mission to the Crimea in 1712. And although the negotiations ended in vain, nevertheless, in the Crimean direction, as well as in the Balkan, Caucasian and Far Eastern directions, Peter I blazed real paths for his descendants."
However, the unsuccessful Prut campaign, undertaken in 1711 (see the article "Dmitry Kantemir as an ally of Peter I"), nullified the results of the Second Azov campaign (1696) of Peter I and forced him to abandon further actions in the southern direction until the end of the Northern war.
If it were not for the premature death of Peter I, then, perhaps, the successful Persian campaign (1722-1723) (see the article "The Persian campaign of Peter I and the Muslim peoples") would have been followed by new steps of the emperor (from 1721) to the Black Sea and Balkan directions, despite the Treaty of Constantinople with the Ottoman Empire, concluded in 1724. Under this agreement, Turkey left Qazvin, Tabriz, Tiflis, Shemakha and Erivan, which previously belonged to Persia, and Russia retained the western and southern coasts of the Caspian Sea, obtained by Petersburg treaty of 1723 with Persia. As you can see, Russia had a ready foothold for further actions in the Transcaucasus.
