With Russia's 1856 defeat in the Crimean War, a part of southern Bessarabia including a part of Budjak (Reni, Ismail, Bolgrad, Kilia) was ceded by the Russian Empire back to the Principality of Moldavia, which soon united with Wallachia to form the United Principalities (which was made a personal union in 1859 to then be deepened into a full union in 1862). Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the Treaty of San Stefano and the Treaty of Berlin recognized the full independence of the new Kingdom of Romania (the principalities that formed it had already been "de facto" independent for half a century), but transferred the territories subject to the 1856 re-configuration back to the Russian Empire.