Following the successful Crimean campaigns in Kabarda and the Tsardom of Muscovy in 1570–1, Tsar Ivan IV preferred to keep a low profile in the North Caucasus, shying away from further provoking the Ottoman Porte. At the same time, he continued to maintain a clientage relationship with the family of Temriuk, especially with his son Mamstriuk, to whom the tsar paid annuities in the 1570s. Meanwhile, Temriuk's brother, Kanbulat, replaced him in 1571 as the head of the Idars and as the pshihua of Kabarda. The new pshihua remained an ally of the Muscovite tsar but followed a fairly balanced policy with other foreign powers. The status quo lasted until 1576 when the Lesser Nogay Horde, supported by Crimean Tatars and some Ottoman volunteers from the city of Azak, attacked the lands of Kanbulat and other pro-Muscovite rulers in Kabarda.

Out of the Ashes, the Tsar's Prestige Born Again: Revival of Muscovite Power in Kabarda

Although Kanbulat, with the help of his Kabardinian allies, succeeded in defeating the Nogays and even killing their leader, Kazy, in an ambush, he realised that his rivals, supported by the Ottoman–Crimean axis in Kabarda, were getting stronger and bolder. For this reason, in 1577–8, Kanbulat turned to Muscovy for assistance and travelled to Moscow with his children and the children of Mamstriuk to submit to the tsar. His embassy coincided with the preparation stage of a large-scale Ottoman campaign against the Safavid Empire, during which the Porte specifically planned to assert its hegemony over the North Caucasus, in addition to acquiring territories in the South Caucasus. Soviet and Western historians who rely solely on Russian sources attribute Kanbulat's rapprochement with Muscovy in 1577–8 to his knowledge of the Ottoman designs over the North Caucasus and his determination to protect Kabardinian independence. The Muscovite tsar was a natural ally in Kanbulat's endeavour of defending Kabarda from the Ottomans and Crimean Tatars. However, it is not plausible that a minor local ruler so far away from the Ottoman Porte would know about the intrinsic details of Ottoman campaign planning and their ambitions over the North Caucasus as early as 1577.

The internal dynamics of Kabardinian politics is undoubtedly a better explanation for Kanbulat's embassy, as was the case when Temriuk approached Muscovy in 1557.