According to Ibn Khordadbeh, already in the 9th century one could encounter Rus merchants in the markets of Baghdad, to which they brought beaver, fox pelts, and swords.

However, at the same time, particularly between 1958 and 1990, Soviet-Iraqi relations were marked by some special features,[3] putting them in contrast with Soviet links with other Afro-Asian nations and even some states of the Arab Middle East.

[4] The regime of King Faisal II was anti-communist, and established links with Moscow due its dependence on the United Kingdom and the Anglo–Soviet Treaty of 1942.

[5] After the 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, the new government persecuted communists, and Soviet Union temporarily suspended arms exports till June 1964.

[6] In 1967, Iraq signed an agreement with the USSR to supply the nation with oil in exchange for large-scale access to Eastern Bloc arms.

"[3] Baghdad's interest in cooperation with Moscow "was based on the need for a powerful patron in its efforts to shed all the remnants of Western colonialism and to establish Iraq as an autonomous member of the world order of nation states.

"[3] The Soviet Union was critical of Saddam Hussein's 2 August 1990 occupation of Kuwait, and supported a United Nations resolution authorizing the use of military force, if necessary, to enforce an arms embargo against Iraq.

In Washington, D.C., Heritage Foundation foreign policy experts Jay P. Kosminsky and Michael Johns wrote on 30 August 1990 that, "While condemning the Iraqi invasion, Gorbachev continues to assist Saddam militarily.

By Moscow's own admission, in a 22 August official press conference with Red Army Colonel Valentin Ogurtsov, 193 Soviet military advisors still are training and assisting Iraq's one million-man armed forces.