After the burning of the Ottoman Navy in the Battle of Chesma, the commander of the Russian Navy, Aleksey Orlov, who was left free in the Aegean Sea, turned to the idea of establishing an Princedom of the Islands under the Tsardom of Russia within the framework of the protection demands he began to receive from the islands with a dense Greek population.

Following the defeat he suffered in the Siege of Lemnos in October 1770, Admiral Orlov set out for St. Petersburg in November to receive instructions from the Tsarina Catherine the Great on this matter, and left the command of the Russian fleet to Grigory Spiridov.

[1] The Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Orlov, returning from St. Petersburg, arrived in front of Lesbos on November 11, 1771, and dropped anchor.

Thereupon, after subjecting the castle to cannon fire for three days, the Russian fleet landed troops on the island on November 13 and began a major plundering campaign.

Hasan Pasha, who had the hairpin burned, sent 25 captured Russian soldiers to Istanbul.