Britain had suffered major setbacks in the Boer War, and its colonial rivals sought to capitalise upon the position of the British which was increasingly undermined in the region.

Vladimir Lambsdorff, the Russian Foreign Minister, wrote to Pyotr Tyrtov, the head of the Ministry of the Navy explaining that the purpose of sending the Gilyak was to show the British and local authorities that by flying the Russian flag in the Persian Gulf, the Empire regards the Persian Gulf as being open to vessels of all nations, and that there was no aggressive intent nor plans for terrorial acquisitions.

The protected cruiser Varyag sailed into Kuwait on 8 December 1901, and Jabir bin Mubarak, the son of the Emir, boarded the vessel to greet the visitors.

[3] After the visit of the Varyag, the next Russian to have an audience with the Emir was N.V. Bogoyavlensky, a zoologist, who was engaging in research in the region for the Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography of Moscow University.

When the Iraqi leader Abd al-Karim Qasim was overthrown in a coup d'état on 8 February 1963, Moscow's relations with Baghdad deteroriated, leading to a warmer attitude towards Kuwait.

[8] Kuwait saw the establishment of relations as an insurance policy, of sorts, against new Iraqi territorial ambitions, and Russia saw the relationship as a bridge between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

[7] Relations began to improve when Leonid Brezhnev became the Soviet leader in October 1964; however, in the 1973 Kuwait–Iraq Sanita border skirmish, Russia favored Iraq over Kuwait.

The Soviets supported the Kuwaiti's nationalisation of its oil industry, and the two countries shared similar views on foreign policy issues, in particular in relation to the Arab–Israeli conflict.

[1] In 1987, after U.S.A refused to supply Stingers, Kuwait signed a 327 million dollar deal with Soviet Union for the purchase of surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, tanks and other military equipment.

The President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev explained that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait had created an "extraordinary and extremely dangerous" situation in Persian Gulf.

[19][20][21] On 29 November 1993, Kuwait became the first Persian Gulf Arab state to sign a military agreement with Russia, which followed joint naval exercises at the end of 1992.

[22][23] In May 1994, Pavel Grachev, the Russian Minister of Defence announced that Kuwait had signed an agreement for the delivery of a number of BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles and S-300V surface-to-air missiles.