 These Cossacks were joined by numerous Ukrainian peasants fleeing from Russian Serfdom and lived on the left bank of the Danube river (Budjak) then part of the Ottoman Empire, who allowed them to settle there.By 1778 they numbered 12 thousand men, and the Turkish Sultan decided that they would have much more use as a Cossack Host, and allocated them the land of Kuchungary (modern Transnistria) in the lower Dniester where they swore loyalty to the Ottoman Empire.However the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War divided the Cossacks.