The treaty has been noted for the circumstances that a European great power met the Russian tsardom on equal footing, and that no prior military decision forced the parties to conclude it.
[1] The Livonian Confederation had turned to Poland-Lithuania for protection in the 1557 Treaty of Pozvol, provoking the intervention of Ivan IV[2] who, despite significant territorial gains and the important victory at Ermes (Ergeme), was unable to subordinate all Livonia.
Frost has summarized the 1562 state of war as an "uneasy stalemate:" while Denmark-Norway, Sweden, Russia and Poland-Lithuania had staked overlapping claims, the local parties of the broken-up Livonian Confederation had at least preliminarily chosen sides and intense fighting had occurred between some of the respective armies, a stable solution was not in sight even if military engagements had waned.
[1] He had no ambitions to enter a conflict with Ivan IV of Russia, and despite a brief irritation in the context of Christian III's occupation of Ösel (Øsel, Saaremaa) in 1558, Dano-Russian relations were amicable and based on a mutual assistance pact of 1493, renewed in 1506 and 1517.
[5] Ivan IV likewise did not wish a conflict with Frederick II, as he was unable to reach an understanding with the other parties in the Livonian war, Sweden and Poland-Lithuania, and was pressed by Crimean Tartar invasions at his tsardom's southern frontier.
[9] Neither party was able to prevent Swedish forces from intruding and occupying part of their Livonian claims, the Danish and Polish kings agreed on mutual support against Sweden in the Northern Seven Years' War.