Since the year 2013 the political relations have become strained due to a number of conflicts and incidents, the most prominent being the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the shooting down of MH17 in 2014 that killed 193 Dutch nationals, and the war in Donbas.

One of the most notable Dutch members of the Russian navy was the Norwegian-born captain Cornelius Cruys, who after several years of service reached the rank of admiral and became the first commander of the Baltic Fleet.

In October 2011 president Dmitry Medvedev met in the Kremlin with the Prime Minister of Netherlands Mark Rutte to discuss bilateral ties.

In October 2013, the ties between the countries were strained when a group of Greenpeace activists were arrested during a protest on an Arctic oil rig owned by Gazprom.

On October 9, the minister counsellor Dmitri Borodin, working at the Russian embassy in The Hague, was detained after allegations of abusing his children.

[9] During the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, Vladimir Putin visited the Holland Heineken House and drank a beer with King Willem Alexander.

[citation needed] Since March 2014 the Netherlands participated in the European Union economic sanctions against Russia due to the Russo-Ukrainian war.

In May 2024, Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said that the Netherlands would not object if Ukraine used Dutch-supplied F-16 fighters to strike military targets inside Russia.