He was regarded as the only Russian statesman of the day with sufficient foresight to grasp the fact that the Baltic seaboard, or even a part of it, was worth more to Russia than ten times the same amount of territory in Lithuania, and, despite opposition from a number of his colleagues, in December 1658 he succeeded in concluding a three-year Treaty of Valiesari whereby the Russians were left in possession of all their conquests in Livonia.
Moreover, all vessels constructed at Tsarevich-Dmitriev were destroyed (the vessels were constructed in a shipyard founded by a boyar named Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin).