The Russian victory ratified for Safavid Iran's cession of their territories in the North Caucasus, South Caucasus and contemporary northern Iran to Russia, comprising the cities of Derbent (southern Dagestan) and Baku and their nearby surrounding lands, as well as the provinces of Gilan, Shirvan, Mazandaran and Astarabad conform the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1723).

The formal pretext was the grave damage inflicted to the many Russian merchants who inhabited the Safavid Iranian city of Shamakhi.

In 1721, rebellious Lezgins, from within the declining Safavid Empire, had sacked and looted the city, killing many of its inhabitants including several Russian merchants.

[13][12] The report stipulated that the 1721 event was a clear violation of the 1717 Russo-Iranian trade treaty, by which Iran guaranteed to ensure the protection of Russian nationals within the Safavid domains.

On 15 July 1722, Peter issued a manifesto in several local languages justifying the invasion, drawn up by Dimitrie Cantemir.

The infantry, artillery and stores were to be shipped by sea to the mouth of the Sulak River while the cavalry went overland from Tsaritsyn and Mozdok.

By the time Peter was assembling his forces for the attack, the Safavid state had already entered the final stages of collapse.

), sent Colonel Shipov and two battalions south to occupy the Iranian city of Rasht at the southwest corner of the Caspian.

The war was formally concluded by the 1723 Treaty of Saint Petersburg, which recognized the Russian annexation of the west and south coasts of the Caspian.

By the 1724 Treaty of Constantinople, Russia recognized Turkish control of nearly everything west of what they had captured, thereby partitioning Transcaucasia between the two powers.

[8] Peter was determined to keep the newly conquered Iranian territories in the Caucasus and northern mainland Iran.

[8] In May 1724, the Tsar wrote to Matiushkin, Russian commander in Rasht, that he should invite "Armenians and other Christians, if there are such, to Gilan and Mazandaran and settle them, while Muslims should be very quietly, so that they would not know it, diminished in number as much as possible.

"[8] In 1732, on the eve of the Russo-Turkish War, the government of Empress Anna Ioannovna, Peter's successor, returned many of the annexed territories to Iran as a part of the Treaty of Resht, to construct an alliance with the Safavids against the Ottoman Empire.

[19] As The Cambridge History of Iran adds, "perhaps the only long-term consequence was the consciousness on the part of Russia's rulers that their armies had once marched beyond the Caucasus, that the Russian flag had flown over the southern shore of the Caspian Sea."

In eastern Georgia, Vakhtang VI of Kartli lost his throne and sought protection of the Russian court in 1724.