Since October 1955, the Republic of Austria maintains the constitutionally-mandated status of neutrality; the country is a founding member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OEEC).

After 1815 Austria's policy as set by Klemens von Metternich was based on a realistic acceptance of Russia's political predominance in Moldavia and Wallachia.

The major source of tension between Austria-Hungary and Russia was the so-called Eastern Question: what to do about the weakening Ottoman Empire and its rebellious Christian subjects.

The 1878 Treaty of Berlin concluded in the aftermath of Russia's victory against the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), allowed Austria-Hungary to occupy the Bosnia Vilayet.

The visit to Saint Petersburg of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph and his conference with Nicholas II of Russia in 1897 heralded a secret agreement between the two empires to honor and seek to maintain the status quo in the Balkans, which was in line with Vienna's attempts to forestall an emergence of a large Slavic state in the region.

Following the Bolshevik revolution in November 1917, the new Russian government began diplomatic efforts to terminate the war with the Central Powers, including Austria-Hungary.

[5] The rump Austrian state left after the war eventually joined with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss, and was therefore part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

Instead, Austria was required to sign the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 under which it pledged total neutrality in the Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the U.S.-led West.

Subsequently, Europe's main gas hub was set up at Baumgarten an der March on Austria's eastern border with Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia.

According to the report Gazprom's European Web, Austria has long been a favorite country for Soviet (now Russian) commerce, banking, and espionage activities.

Austrian police sources have in the 2000s stated that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) maintained its largest European station in Vienna.

[7] In 2003, SVR agent Vladimir Alganov was caught in Vienna discussing bribes Russian spies had paid to senior Polish officials.

Oleg Orlov, the director of Moscow's Memorial Human Rights Centre, said "We are deeply alarmed about what appears to be another politically motivated killing of a critic of high-level Russian government officials.

[...] In light of the brutal retaliation inflicted on those who speak out on abuses in Chechnya, Israilov's actions were particularly courageous, and his killers and those behind them need to be promptly held to account".

In June 2018, in Vienna at a joint press conference, the Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz stated that he hoped for a gradual rapprochement between the European Union and Russia.

[14] Austria was the only major EU country not to expel Russian diplomats in the course of the retaliatory measures undertaken by the West in the aftermath of the poisoning case in Salisbury in March 2018.

[22] Professor Gerhard Mangott of University of Innsbruck commented for the BBC by saying he was surprised the incident had been made public as it is business as usual and a long-standing tradition for Austrian citizens to spy for foreign powers.

[24] On 25 July 2019, Austria's Ministry of the Interior said that the suspected colonel's handler had been a Moscow-born GRU officer Igor Egorovich Zaytsev, a Russian national, for whom an international arrest warrant had been issued.

[27] In May 2019, Vladimir Putin and Alexander Van der Bellen, the President of Austria, on an official visit to Russia, addressed the constituent meeting of the Sochi Dialogue Civil Society Forum.

[28] Following the talks with his Russian counterpart, Alexander Van der Bellen told the press conference that Austria had no intention to quit the Nord Stream 2 project, the mounting U.S. sanctions notwithstanding.