In 1774, Sultan Mustafa III was defeated by Catherine the Great. The Russian fleet had destroyed the Ottoman navy and the Russian army had inflicted heavy defeats on the Ottoman land forces. The ensuing Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca forced the Sublime Porte to recognize the Tatars of the Crimea as politically independent.
According to the treaty, the Crimean Khanate formally gained its independence (but in reality made the Crimea a protectorate of Russia). The Porte also ceded to Russia two key seaports, Azov and Kerch, obtaining freedom of navigation for the Russian Navy and the merchant fleet in the Black Sea, allowing Catherine II to start a policy of control and hegemony over that sea. The treaty also granted to Russia the position of protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman loss of the Crimea and the end of the Crimean Khanate caused Muslims everywhere to question the sultans' legitimacy as defenders of Islam.
After the failure of the Crimean revolts of 1777-1782, in March 1783, Prince Grigory Potemkin made a rhetorical push to encourage Empress Catherine to annex Crimea. Having just returned from Crimea, he told her that many Crimeans would happily submit to Russian rule. Encouraged by these news, Empress Catherine issued a formal proclamation of annexation on 19 April [O.S. 8 April] 1783. The Tatars did not resist the annexation. Crimea was incorporated into the Empire as "Taurida Governorate". Catherine the Great's incorporation of the Crimea into the Russian Empire increased Imperial Russia's power in the Black Sea area.
In 1787, Catherine conducted a triumphal procession in the Crimea. Sultan Abdül Hamid I restarted hostilities in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–92. Emperor Joseph II of Austria joined the war on the side of the Russian Empire. This conflict turned into another catastrophe for the Ottomans, ending with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimized the Russian claim to the Crimea and granted the Yedisan region to Russia. The Crimea was the first Muslim territory to slip from the sultan's suzerainty. The Ottoman Empire's frontiers would gradually shrink for another two centuries, and Russia would proceed to push her frontier westwards to the Dniester.
-Painting: The Triumph of Catherine the Great by Vassily Nesterenko, Tavrichesky Hall of the Grand Palace in Tsaritsyno, 2007.
-Further reading: Antoine-Ignace Anthoine, Essai historique sur le commerce et la navigation, 1805; I also advise the reading of Brian L. Davies' The Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774 Catherine II and the Ottoman Empire, 2016 and Eugene Miakinkov's War and Enlightenment in Russia: Military Culture In The Age Of Catherine II, 2020.
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