The winter made the operations more difficult and the battle of Pyhäjoki became one of the first skirmishes to be fought after the Swedish retreat stopped.

At the same time, they had left large portions of Finland to be occupied by the Russians.

Yakov Petrovich Kulnev led a vanguard of 1,300 men — his army counted 4,000 men in total — and caught up with the rearguard of the retreating Swedish main army at the village of Ypperi.

Skirmishes occurred all the way to Pyhäjoki, where the Swedes made a brief stand, before Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor gave orders to von Döbeln and Gripenberg to continue the retreat to follow the original strategic plan.

They had lost 183 men in killed, wounded and captured (among the latter, adjutant general Gustaf Löwenhielm).