[7] Russo-Ottoman antagonism continued to grow over the following decades, as the two powers rivalled over influence in their borderlands in Crimea, Ukraine, Poland, and Moldavia, leading finally to the outbreak of war in 1768.

[9] The Austrian advance into the northwestern Balkans during the Great Turkish War also caused concern, with the Serbian patriarch and the ruler of Wallachia, Șerban Cantacuzino, seeking Russian support as early as 1688.

[11] Europe was caught up in costly and bloody conflicts while the Ottomans stayed out and tended to economy and politics, and rebuilding social and administrative organization.

[14] Russia planned to incite Orthodox Christians to revolt, and sent agents to Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Crete and the Morea.

[17] Russia assembled a war fleet for deployment in the Mediterranean, described as "one of the most spectacular events of the 18th century", which caught the Ottomans off-guard.

[18] Among the Greek leaders that were approached were Panagiotis Benakis, a notable from Kalamata, the local metropolitan bishop Anthimos,[19] and Cretan shipping magnate John Vlachos "Daskalogiannis".

The Greek forces were divided into major units (called legions) with the help of a small number of Russian officers and soldiers.

[20] The Greek rebels were initially successful and managed to defeat Ottoman forces in Laconia and eastern Messenia in southern Morea.

The revolt however failed to effectively spread, thus the fortresses of Navarino, Methone and the administrative center of Morea, Tripolitsa (modern Tripoli), remained in Ottoman hands.

[23] There with messianic overtones they prepared for a week with feasting and in formations of small bands started to kill local Muslims in an unsuccessful effort to convince other Cretans to join them in their quest to overthrow the Ottomans.

[22] In April the revolutionaries managed to capture the fortress of Navarino however the uprising was already doomed and the Russian fleet abandoned the region in following June.

Greek reinforcements from Macedonia and Olympus region faced opposition in their descent to Morea and thus were unable to assist the revolutionaries.

[30] The city of Mystras was left in ruins and the metropolitan bishop Ananias was executed despite having saved the life of several Turks during the uprising.

[32] The Ottoman government was unable to pay the wages the Albanian mercenaries demanded for their service, causing the latter to ravage the region.

In the decades after the revolt, tens of thousands of Greeks emigrated from the Ottoman to the Russian empire, establishing colonies in the Crimea and along the shores of the Sea of Azov.

Cities like Mariupol and Taganrog became booming commercial centers dominated by Ottoman Greek immigrants and their Greek-Russian successors.