Russia's least successful result has been 17th place, which they have achieved in the 1995 with the song "Kolybelnaya dlya vulkana" performed by Philipp Kirkorov.

[3] The announcement occurred during the First Russian National Music Awards, where Sergey Lazarev was named "Singer of the Year".

[4] Lazarev previously attempted to represent Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 and 2004 as a member of duo Smash and in 2007, 2008 and 2015 as a solo act.

Russian media later reported that Lazarev would work with Kirkorov and Dimitris Kontopoulos in order to create his contest song, while choreographer Fokas Evangelinos was selected to develop the stage presentation for the entry.

[6] The music video, directed by Konstantin Cherepkov, features Miss Universe Russia 2015 Vladislava Evtushenko.

[11] On 3 April, Lazarev performed during the Eurovision Pre-Party, which was held at the Izvestia Hall in Moscow and hosted by Dmitry Guberniev.

[16][17] On 18 April, Sergey Lazarev made promotional appearances in Athens, Greece where he attended a meet and greet during a party organized by the Oikotimes website and he performed during the MAD TV Madwalk 2016 music and fashion show, which was hosted by Despina Vandi.

[20] On 25 January 2016, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in.

On stage, Lazarev was joined by five backing vocalists/dancers: Jennie Jahns, Alvaro Estrella, Johan D. Seil, Daniel Gill and Adam Svensson.

[37] Voting during the three shows was conducted under a new system that involved each country now awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting.

Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency.

This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act.

[38] In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently.

The individual rankings of each jury member as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the grand final.

[45] The Russian broadcaster named actor Stanislav Duzhnikov as a replacement juror prior to the jury final on 13 May.