[citation needed] The border between the Russian Empire and the Joseon, then a tributary state of the Qing dynasty, was established by the Convention of Peking in November 1860.

This omission was allegedly caused by the director of the Ministry of Revenue Cheng Qi, who was serving as the special Chinese envoy for Sino-Russian border survey in 1861.

Cheng Qi was addicted to opium and went to nearby Jilin City to replenish his drug stash, and entrusted the establishment of the border markers entirely to the Russian survey representatives.

[citation needed] In 1985, the Soviet Union and North Korea signed an agreement establishing a border along the middle of the Tumen.

[citation needed] There is one crossing on the North Korea–Russia border: the Friendship Bridge over the Tumen River,[5] 800 metres (2,600 ft) southwest of the train station in Khasan, Russia.

Passenger train service over the Friendship Bridge includes a Khasan–Tumangang shuttle, as well as a Korean State Railway direct car on the Moscow–Pyongyang route.

[13] In April 2015, the deputy transport ministers of Russia and North Korea—Nikolai Asaul and Kwok Il-ryong, respectively—signed an agreement to develop a road connection between the two countries.

To prevent the loss of national territory, and to shield Khasan and the Peschanaya border guard station from flooding, Russian authorities carried out a riverbank protection project using rock fill from 2004 to 2008.

[15] On 16 October 2016, a Russian border guard killed a North Korean fisherman and injured eight others after opening fire on a fishing vessel in the Sea of Japan.

A Russian coast guard ship fired at the trawler's propulsion system, disabling it, and on the North Korean crewmen, the statement said.

[18] On 18 September 2019, Russia summoned the top North Korean diplomat in the country over a skirmish between the coast guard and fishing vessels in the Sea of Japan.

Russia's Foreign Ministry expressed "serious concern" over the incident to Jin Jong-hyeop, the interim chargé d'affaires at the North Korean Embassy in Moscow.