[2] In 1562, the Danish king Frederick II and the Russian tsar Ivan IV continued amicable relations based on the Treaty of Mozhaysk.

On the Swedish side were Holstein-Gottorp (a Danish vassal), between 1704 and 1710 several Polish and Lithuanian magnates under Stanisław Leszczyński, and between 1708 and 1710 cossacks under Ivan Mazepa.

Though the Danish attacks were repulsed, Russia managed to occupy Finland and inflict severe losses on the Swedish navy and coastal fortresses.

The war ended with a defeat for Sweden, leaving Russia as the new major power in the Baltic Sea and a new important player in European politics – in fact, it signed the beginning of a pattern of Russian expansion that would only be stopped two centuries later.

Sweden's defeat in the Great Northern War ended its patronage for Holstein-Gottorp, and Denmark used the occasion to seize Gottorp's territory in Schleswig.

[5] Peter III threatened war with Denmark for the recovery of his ancestral lands, but before any fighting could begin he was overthrown by his wife, who took control of Russia as Tsarina Catherine II.

In the 1760s the two governments negotiated the transfer of ducal Schleswig-Holstein to the Danish crown in return for Russian control of the County of Oldenburg and adjacent lands within the Holy Roman Empire, an exchange that was formalized with the 1773 Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo.

A Norwegian army briefly invaded Sweden and won the Battle of Kvistrum Bridge, before peace was signed on 9 July 1789 following the diplomatic intervention of Great Britain and Prussia.

After the First Schleswig War Russia took Denmark's side in the negotiation of the 1852 London Protocol, which reaffirmed Danish sovereignty in the disputed duchies.

In 1866 Danish Princess Dagmar, a daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, married the future Tsar Alexander III of Russia, taking the Russian name Maria Feodorovna.

After World War II ended Denmark became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, though its foreign policy continued to incline more toward neutrality than confrontation with the Soviet Union.

[11] In August 2014, the Danish Government announced that it would contribute to NATO's missile defense shield by equipping one or more of its frigates with the specific radar capacity.

Denmark's foreign minister, Martin Lidegaard, announced the ambassador's remarks as unacceptable and that the defense system was not aimed at Russia, a claim echoed by NATO's spokeswoman, Oana Lungescu.