Vakhtang VI had encamped at Ganja in September 1722 with a combined Georgian-Armenian army of forty thousand to join the advancing Russian expedition.

After receiving news about Peter’s departure, he returns to Tbilisi in November.

The origins of the first full scale Russo-Persian War can be traced back to the decision of Tsar Paul to annex Georgia (December 1800) after Erekle II, who had been appointed as ruler of Kartli several years earlier by his ruler Nader Shah, made a plea to Christian Russia in the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783 to be incorporated into the empire.

After Paul’s assassination (March 11, 1801), the activist policy had been continued by his successor, Tsar Alexander, aimed at establishing Russian control over the khanates of the eastern Caucasus.

In 1803, the newly appointed commander of Russian forces in the Caucasus, Paul Tsitsianov, had attacked Ganja and captures its citadel on January 15, 1804.

Ganja's governor, Javad Khan Qajar, is killed, and a large number of the inhabitants slaughtered.

Abbas Mirza’s army arrives too late and retires to the south.

The Qajar ruler, Fat′h-Ali Shah, sees the Russian threat to Armenia, Karabagh, and Azerbaijan not only as a source of instability on his northwestern frontier but as a direct challenge to Qajar authority.