In the fall, the tsar sent Yemelyan Ignatievich Ukraintsev to the sultan's court, the Porte at Constantinople (Istanbul), to negotiate a peace.[4] Ukraintsev arrived on a Russian war ship, the 46-gun frigate Krepost in the early fall of 1699.[4] The primary Russian objectives were Ottoman recognition of the Russian war gains around Azov and a free access to the Black Sea for Russia's commercial vessels.[4] When the negotiations progressed slowly[4] and Peter the Great came under time pressure to attack the Swedish Empire in the Great Northern War (see below),[5] he urged Ukraintsev to come to a peace soon, and the Russian condition of Black Sea access was dropped.[4]