In the summer of 1497, he set out planning to reconquer the fortresses on the northern Black Sea coast and take control of Crimea and the Danube Delta, while Stephen the Great of Moldavia was able to secure Ottoman support.

[6][5][4] The campaign started on the wrong foot, with John I Albert entering Moldavia at Hotin and - despite sound advice to the contrary - deciding not to take the fortress, but to go straight for the capital city of Suceava.

John I Albert formally accepted this condition; however, in practice, he decided to retreat on a different and unfamiliar route through Bukovina to Sniatyn, instead of taking the route to Kamieniec Podolski (Camenița) through Hotin (Chocim), knowing fully well that abiding by Stephen's condition would have spelled death for the exhausted and starved Polish troops, as they already had devastated that region on their way to Suceava, in an attempt to keep the army supplied.

However, breaking the arrangement previously agreed upon proved to be the fateful mistake that Stephen was waiting for all along: on 26 October he ambushed the Poles while they were marching on a narrow road passing through a thickly wooded area known as The Cosmin Forest.

[7] This took place in the spring of 1498: after crossing the Dniestr, the invaders ransacked Red Ruthenia and Podolia, capturing as much as a hundred thousand people and reaching as far as Przeworsk.