Owing to Rákóczi's War of Independence (1703–1711), the position of Serbian militiamen in the Military Frontier of the Habsburg monarchy was endangered.

[2] During the office of Metropolitan Petar I, he and guvernadur Jovan Radonjić were the two head chiefs of Montenegro, one by title, the other according to actual position.

[9] In December 2015, the spokesman for Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Montenegro's accession to NATO was bound to result in "retaliatory actions".

[10] In October 2016 a Russian backed group of Serbians plotted to storm the parliament and assassinate Milo Đukanović, the then-prime minister, to mount a coup with opposition parties and thwart the plan to join NATO.

The plot was uncovered and 14 people, including two alleged members of Russian intelligence services were charged, tried and sentenced to long terms in prison.

[12] A Russian establishment analyst commented that NATO needed Montenegro for launching a hybrid war and destabilising Europe.

"[18][19] Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has continued to interfere in Montenegro politics, often through Serbia, where some nationalist Serbs deny the distinct identity and history of the Montenegrin nation and utilising the presence of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian media to promote Russia.

[20] Around 13,000 Russian citizens have fled Russia and settled in Montenegro in the first year after the war started [21] and have set up 4,000 businesses.

In 2012, Monstat reported that Russian businessmen have majority shares 32% of foreign enterprises present in Montenegro.

Privatization in Montenegro has been recognized among Russian officials as a matter of controversy since 2005, when Vladimir Vaniev (at the time representing the Russian Consulate in Podgorica) said sarcastically in a press conference regarding the privatization of Montenegrin aluminum-producer KAP that "he didn't know that Montenegro was the 51st state of the United States.

"[29] Vaniev also accused the Montenegrin press of being funded "in dollars" by the United States in order to support a disproportionate privatization wave for the benefit of American interests.

[30] The dissolution of the Serbo-Montenegrin union also led to large swaths of property being sold to eccentric profiles under controversial exchanges.