According to the chronicle, while Sviatoslav I was pursuing his campaign against the First Bulgarian Empire, the Pechenegs (in all probability, bribed by Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus Phocas) invaded Rus and besieged his capital of Kiev (Kyiv). While the besieged suffered from hunger and thirst, Svyatoslav's general Pretich deployed his "druzhina", his personal guard, on the opposite (left) bank of the Dnieper, not daring to cross the river against the larger Pecheneg force.