By the end of the war, the Imperial Russian Army had occupied most of Finland, prompting Field-Marshal Trubetskoy and Chancellor Aleksey Bestuzhev to demand the application of uti possidetis principle in this case. By acquiring Finland, Russian politicians aspired to move the Swedish border considerably to the north, thus reducing the danger of Swedish attack on the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg. In the hope of gaining independence, the Finnish estates offered the ephemeral throne of their country to Duke Peter of Holsten-Gottorp, the heir apparent to the Russian Crown.