The first small-scale raids took place in the late 9th and early 10th century, and the Rus' undertook the first large-scale expedition in 913; having arrived on 500 ships, they pillaged the Gorgan region (within present day Iran), as well the areas of Gilan and Mazandaran, taking slaves and goods.

[12] Though these commercial exchanges in the latter half of the 16th century were limited in scope, they nonetheless indicate that the fledgling entente between the two countries emerged as a result of opposition to the neighboring Ottoman Empire.

As the first diplomatic contacts between the two countries was being established, Shah Ismail was also working hard with the aim of joining forces against their mutual enemy, neighboring Ottoman Turkey.

He made the city of Astrakhan his base for his hostilities against Persia, created a shipyard, and attacked the weakened Safavids in the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723), capturing many of its territories in the Caucasus and northern mainland Iran for several years.

After several years of political chaos in Persia following the fall of the Safavids, a new and powerful Persian empire was born under the highly successful military leader Nader Shah.

After the rule of Agha Mohammad Khan, who stabilized the nation and re-established Iranian suzerainty in the Caucasus,[20] the Qajarid government was quickly absorbed with managing domestic turmoil, while rival colonial powers rapidly sought a stable foothold in the region.

A weakened and bankrupted royal court, under Fath Ali Shah, was forced to sign the notoriously unfavourable Treaty of Gulistan (1813) following the outcome of the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813), irrevocably ceding what is modern-day Dagestan, Georgia, and large parts of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) was the outcome of the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828), which resulted in the loss of modern-day Armenia and the remainder of the Azerbaijan Republic, and granted Russia several highly beneficial capitulatory rights, after efforts and initial success by Abbas Mirza failed to ultimately secure Persia's northern front.

[30] The Treaty of Akhal, in which the Qajarid's were forced to drop all claims on Central Asia and parts of Turkmenistan, topped off Persian losses to the global emerging power of Imperial Russia.

In the same period, by a proposal of the Shah with the backing of the Tsar, the Russians founded the Persian Cossack Brigade, which and would prove to be crucial in the next few decades of Iranian history and Irano-Russian relations.

The historian Elena Andreeva adds that this trend was not only very apparent in over 200 Russian travelogues written about Iran and published in the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but also in diplomatic and other official documents.

[33] During this time period, it stationed troops in Iran's Gilan, Azerbaijan and Khorasan provinces, and its diplomatic offices (consulates) in these parts wieleded considerable power.

[33] During the reign of Nicholas II of Russia, Russian occupational troops played a major role in the attempted Tsarist suppression of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.

[3][33] In the dawn of the outbreak of World War I, Russian occupational forces occupied Qajar Iran's Azerbaijan province as well as the entire north and north-east of the country, and amounted to circa twenty thousand.

Shuster's book The Strangling of Persia: Story of the European Diplomacy and Oriental Intrigue That Resulted in the Denationalization of Twelve Million Mohammedans is an account of this period, criticizing the policies of Russian and Britain in Iran.

The rebellion in Gilan, headed by Mirza Kuchak Khan led to an eventual confrontation between the Iranian rebels and the Russian army, but was disrupted with the October Revolution in 1917.

Some notable descendants of these Russian refugees in Persia include the political activist and writer Marina Nemat and the former general and deputy chief of the Imperial Iranian Air Force Nader Jahanbani, whose mother was a White émigré.

This agreement to evacuate from Iran was made in the Russo-Persian Treaty of Friendship (1921), but the regaining of Iranian territory did not protect the Qajar dynasty from a sudden coup d'état led by Colonel Reza Shah.

[41] Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini deemed Islam principally incompatible with the communist ideals (such as atheism) of the Soviet Union, leaving the similarly secular Iraqi government as an ally of Moscow.

It was stated by a Western observer that the accession failed "basically due to the ayatollahs’ opposition to join a military bloc clearly dominated by a traditionally rival power of Iran such as Russia.

[62] Iran criticized the assessment by the United States, saying that it would not supply Russia or Ukraine with military equipment during the war, instead demanding that both nations seek a peaceful resolution.

[66] According to various media outlets, as of 2023, American intelligence has claimed that Iran has been assisting Moscow in building a drone factory within its borders to maintain its war machine in Ukraine.

[67][68] In August 2023, The White House reportedly urged Iran to cease selling armed drones to Russia as part of broader discussions in Qatar and Oman, aimed at de-escalating the nuclear crisis.

[72] Motor vehicles, fruits, vegetables, glass, textiles, plastics, chemicals, hand-woven carpet, stone and plaster products were among the main Iranian non-oil goods exported to Russia.

"[81] On 20 March 2022 it was reported that Iran, in the person of Agriculture Minister Javad Sadatinejad, had signed a deal in Moscow with Russia to import 20 million tons of basic goods including vegetable oil, wheat, barley and corn.

[82] In May 2022 Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak and Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji, joint co-chairs of the Russian-Iranian Intergovernmental Commission had a meeting in Tehran at which they discussed such items as oil swaps, increasing joint investments, a possible free trade zone, adding to the Russian-built Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, and developing the long-delayed North-South Transport Corridor, a rail cargo route from all the way from Russia to India, among other items.

[79] Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Tehran on 19 July 2022 to meet with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Bilateral economic ties had intensified since sanctions were placed on Russia after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and chances for the revival of the JCPOA with Iran faded in late 2022.

[86] Ten days after the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow it was reported that Iran had warned Russia that a major "terrorist operation" was being planned, based on information gathered from ISIS–K militants arrested after the 2024 Kerman bombings.

[96] A Gallup poll from the end of 2013 showed Iran ranked as sixth greatest threat to peace in the world according to Russian view (3%), after United States (54%), China (6%), Iraq (5%), and Syria (5%).