Sokollu Mehmed Pasa, the Ottoman Grand Vizier, had dispatched troops to Azov in 1568 with the intention of seizing Astrakhan from Russia.

Simultaneously, troops had moved up the Don River to initiate canal construction.

Technical problems force a halt to the project after the canal is about one-third complete, and Turkish vessels must be portaged to the Volga River, from which the Turks invest Astrakhan in early 1569.

The Turkish troops, failing to reduce the Russian city, withdraw and are lost on the return journey in a storm on the Black Sea.

Sultan Selim orders Mehmed Pasa to cancel the Volga-Don canal project for which the war was begun.