The Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s, amidst the deaths of millions under Joseph Stalin's rule, and later played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front.

Between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, the Bosporan Kingdom, which was a Hellenistic polity that succeeded the Greek colonies,[56] was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warlike tribes such as the Huns and Eurasian Avars.

[60] The East Slavs gradually settled western Russia (approximately between modern Moscow and Saint-Petersburg) in two waves: one moving from Kiev towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod and Rostov.

[62][63] The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the 9th century coincided with the arrival of Varangians, the Vikings who ventured along the waterways extending from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas.

The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium, and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda.

The tsar promulgated a new code of laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (the Zemsky Sobor), revamped the military, curbed the influence of the clergy, and reorganised local government.

[81] The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurik dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the disastrous famine of 1601–1603, led to a civil war, the rule of pretenders, and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century.

[92] In the south, after the successful Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire, Catherine advanced Russia's boundary to the Black Sea, by dissolving the Crimean Khanate, and annexing Crimea.

The French invasion of Russia at the height of Napoleon's power in 1812 reached Moscow, but eventually failed as the obstinate resistance in combination with the bitterly cold Russian winter led to a disastrous defeat of invaders, in which the pan-European Grande Armée faced utter destruction.

Led by Mikhail Kutuzov and Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, the Imperial Russian Army ousted Napoleon and drove throughout Europe in the War of the Sixth Coalition, ultimately entering Paris.

[102] The officers who pursued Napoleon into Western Europe brought ideas of liberalism back to Russia, and attempted to curtail the tsar's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825.

[106] During most of the 19th and early 20th century, Russia and Britain colluded over Afghanistan and its neighbouring territories in Central and South Asia; the rivalry between the two major European empires came to be known as the Great Game.

[110] The uprising was put down, but the government was forced to concede major reforms (Russian Constitution of 1906), including granting freedoms of speech and assembly, the legalisation of political parties, and the creation of an elected legislative body, the State Duma.

[118] In the aftermath of signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that concluded hostilities with the Central Powers of World War I; Bolshevist Russia surrendered most of its western territories, which hosted 34% of its population, 54% of its industries, 32% of its agricultural land, and roughly 90% of its coal mines.

[159] After becoming the world's second nuclear power,[160] the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact alliance,[161] and entered into a struggle for global dominance, known as the Cold War, with the rivalling United States and NATO.

[193] High budget deficits coupled with increasing capital flight and inability to pay back debts, caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis, which resulted in a further GDP decline.

[226] In June 2023, the Wagner Group, a private military contractor fighting for Russia in Ukraine, declared an open rebellion against the Russian Ministry of Defence, capturing Rostov-on-Don, before beginning a march on Moscow.

[378] Russia has one of the lowest levels of external debt among major economies,[379][obsolete source]and had the fifth-largest foreign exchange reserves, valued at over $600 billion,[380] although half of that is frozen abroad, and a significant amount is believed to have been spent on the Ukrainian war.

[382][383] After over a decade of post-Soviet rapid economic growth, backed by high oil prices and a surge in foreign exchange reserves and investment,[200] Russia's economy was damaged by a wave of international sanctions imposed in 2014 following the Russo-Ukrainian War and annexation of Crimea.

[387] Although Russia has maintained relative economic stability and growth—driven primarily by high military spending, household consumption, and capital investment—economists suggest the sanctions will have a long-term effect on the Russian economy.

[405][406][obsolete source]Russia's oil and gas production led to deep economic relationships with the European Union, China, and former Soviet and Eastern Bloc states.

[407][408] For example, over the last decade, Russia's share of the total gas demand for the EU (including the United Kingdom) increased from 25% in 2009 to 32% in the weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

[431] Various analysts of climate change adaptation foresee large opportunities for Russian agriculture during the rest of the 21st century as arability increases in Siberia, which would lead to both internal and external migration to the region.

[483] Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the demographic crisis has deepened,[484] owing to reportedly high military fatalities and renewed emigration caused by Western mass-sanctions and boycotts.

[517] In 2012, the research organisation Sreda, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, published the Arena Atlas, an adjunct to the 2010 census, enumerating in detail the religious populations and nationalities of Russia, based on a large-sample country-wide survey.

[537] However, Russia's historically high alcohol consumption rate is the biggest health issue in the country,[538] as it remains one of the world's highest, despite a stark decrease in the last decade.

[573] In the 1860s, a group of critical realists (Peredvizhniki), led by Ivan Kramskoy, Ilya Repin and Vasiliy Perov broke with the academy, and portrayed the many-sided aspects of social life in paintings.

[575][576] The Russian avant-garde flourished from approximately 1890 to 1930; and globally influential artists from this era were El Lissitzky,[577] Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, and Marc Chagall.

[607] Following Pushkin's footsteps, a new generation of poets were born, including Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet.

[617] It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely.