Historian Gary Dean Peterson writes: "With all this unrest, Ivan Mazepa of the Ukrainian Cossacks was looking for an opportunity to secure independence from Russia and Poland". In response to Mazepa's alliance with Charles XII of Sweden, Peter I ordered the sacking of the then capital of the Hetmanate, Baturyn. The city was burnt and looted, and 11,000 to 14,000 of its inhabitants were killed. The destruction of the Hetmanate's capital was a signal to Mazepa and the Hetmanate's inhabitants of severe punishment for disloyalty to the Tsar's authority. One of the Zaporizhian Sichs, the Chortomlyk Sich built at the mouth of the Chortomlyk River in 1652, was also destroyed by Peter I's forces in 1709, in retribution for decision of the hetman of the Chortmylyk Sich, Kost Hordienko, to ally with Mazepa.