[2] In 1712, Peter the Great attached Bestuzhev to Prince Kurakin at the Utrecht Congress, that he might learn diplomacy and, for the same reason, permitted him in 1713 to enter the service of the elector of Hanover.

[2] Bestuzhev curiously illustrated his passion for intrigue in a letter to Tsarevich Alexey Petrovich at Vienna, assuring his "future sovereign" of his devotion and representing his sojourn in England as the deliberate seclusion of a zealous but powerless well wisher.

[3] On the occasion of the Treaty of Nystad (1721), which terminated the Great Northern War's 21 years of struggle between Russia and Sweden, Bestuzhev designed and had minted a commemorative medal with a panegyrical Latin inscription, which so delighted Peter, then at Derbent, that he sent a letter of thanks written in his own hand along with his portrait.

During the negotiations for the Treaty of Åbo (January to August 1743) Bestuzhev insisted for Sweden to cede the whole of Finland to Russia, thus completing the work of Peter the Great.

The Swedes, with the encouragement of Elizabeth, accepted Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Holstein, as their future king, and, in return, received Finland again, with the exception of a small strip of land up to the Kymmene River.

[3] Bestuzhev could not prevent the signing of a Russo-Prussian defensive alliance in March 1743 but deprived it of all political significance by excluding the proposed guarantee of Frederick's conquests from the First Silesian War.

Moreover Bestuzhev's efforts made the standing of the Prussian king, whom he regarded as even more dangerous than France, at the Russian court fell steadily, and the vice-chancellor prepared the way for an alliance with Austria by agreeing on 1 November 1743 to the Treaty of Breslau of 11 June 1742.

[3] The bogus Lopukhina Conspiracy, however, put in place by the Holstein faction and aided by France and Prussia, persuaded Elizabeth that the Austrian ambassador had intrigued to restore Ivan VI to the throne and alienated her from Austria for a time.

Bestuzhev's ruin appeared certain when, in 1743, a French agent, Jacques-Joachim Trotti, marquis de la Chétardie, arrived to reinforce his enemies.

Still, his position remained most delicate, especially when the betrothal between Grand-Duke Peter and Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst (later Catherine II) took place against his will, and Elizabeth of Holstein, the mother of the bride, arrived to promote Prussian interests.

The first step to realizing that plan required the overthrow of Bestuzhev, "upon whom", Frederick II wrote to his minister Axel von Mardefeld, "the fate of Prussia and my own house depends".

[3] He then felt hampered by the persistent opposition of the vice-chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov, formerly his friend but now his jealous rival, whom Frederick the Great secretly supported.

His enemies, headed by his elder brother, Mikhail and the vice-chancellor Vorontsov, were powerless while his diplomacy seemed faultless but quickly took advantage of his mistakes.

He endeavoured to counteract his failing influence by a secret alliance with Grand-Duchess Catherine, whom he proposed to raise to the throne instead of her Holstein husband, Peter, from whom Bestuzhev expected nothing good either for himself or for Russia.

The inclusion of Russia in the anti-Prussian coalition (1756) in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) occurred over Bestuzhev's head, and the cowardice and incapacity of his friend, the Russian commander-in-chief, Stepan Fyodorovich Apraksin, after winning the Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf (30 August 1757), became the pretext for overthrowing the chancellor.