He commanded the Imperial Russian Navy in the taking of Helsinki (1713)—materially assisting the conquest of Finland by his operations from the side of the sea—and the great Battle of Gangut (1714). That same year he assisted the tsar in opening a new naval harbour in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia). Earlier, in 1712, he held parley with Turkey, which ended in the destruction of Taganrog and the surrender of Azov to the Ottomans. From 1710 to 1720 he personally conducted the descents upon Sweden, ravaging that country mercilessly, and thus extorting the peace of Nystad, whereby she surrendered the best part of her Baltic provinces to Russia. For these great services he was made a senator and General Admiral of the Empire. Later years In 1715, Apraksin fell into temporary disgrace with the tsar, who had been informed about disorders and bribery in the Admiralty. After brief investigation, he was fined and dispatched to govern Estonia. In 1719, he led the Russian naval expedition into the Gulf of Bothnia. During the Russo-Persian War (1722-1723) Apraksin barely escaped an assassination attempt by a Chechen. Whereas his elder brother Peter Apraksin (the governor of Astrakhan) was accused of sympathizing with the Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, Fyodor was eager to demonstrate his zeal in persecuting the tsarevich, as did Count Peter Tolstoy, (1645–1729) . Upon Peter's I death in 1725, his wife Catherine invested the ailing admiral with the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky and nominated him to the Supreme Privy Council, an exigence of the Great Boyars of Russia headed by an influential member of a powerful family, Prince Dmitry Mikhaylovich Galitzine, (1665–1737), Ambassador to Turkey and Poland. These "Six Supreme dignitaries" constituting the initial Supreme Privy Council, namely Alexander Menshikov, Fyodor Apraksin, Gavrila Golovkin, Andrey Osterman, Peter Tolstoy, and Dmitry Galitzine brought about the recognition of Russian Empress Anna Ivanovna for the succession of the unfortunate boy Tsar Peter II, who died in 1730 aged 15 after only 3 years as a Tsar. Once Empress Anna Ivanovna was crowned she began to rule absolutely, and she had Galitzine sentenced to death but later commuted his sentence to exile. Dmitry Galitzine's brother Mikhail Galitzine (1675–1730) commanded Russian operations in Finland (1714–21) during the Northern War with Sweden and was responsible for the Treaty of Nystad, concluded at the end of the war. Apraksin's last expedition was to Revel in 1726, to cover the