History of Russia
The war ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden sued for peace with Russia. Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the Gulf of Finland, thus securing his coveted access to the sea. There, in 1703, he had already founded the city that was to become Russia's new capital, Saint Petersburg, as a "window opened upon Europe" to replace Moscow, long Russia's cultural center. Russian intervention in the Commonwealth marked, with the Silent Sejm, the beginning of a 200-year domination of that region by the Russian Empire. In celebration of his conquests, Peter assumed the title of emperor, and the Russian Tsardom officially became the Russian Empire in 1721.
Military history of the Russian Empire
The war between Russia and the Japanese Empire broke out on February 8, 1904 with a Japanese attack upon the Russian Far East Fleet stationed at Port Arthur. Plagued with logistical problems, outdated military equipment and incompetent Russian officers, Russian forces suffered numerous defeats in the course of the war, which ended in September 1905, in the aftermath of the destruction of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. Faced with growing internal problems, including the revolution of 1905, Russia sued for peace as the war concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth.