[1] For most of the period, neither side sought to conquer the other,[2] until Ivan the Terrible decided to annex Kazan upon the successful 1552 siege, which was followed by a rebellion lasting until 1556.

[citation needed] In the 1430s, the Khanate of Kazan emerged on the mid-Volga, breaking away from the Golden Horde, and roughly comprising the area of former Volga Bulgaria.

[3] Charles J. Halperin (1987) noted: 'Muscovy's relations with the Kazan' khanate were complex, her aggressive intentions tempered by the lure of trade and her own limited military capability.

[5] The Muscovite War of Succession between Vasily Vasilyevich and his uncle Dmitry Shemyaka tore Muscovy apart from 1425 to 1453, while Ulugh Muhammad (Ulu-Mehmed), the first khan of Kazan, was murdered by his son Mäxmüd (Mahmutek), who then expelled his brothers Qasim and Yakub.

[7] During the 1486–1487 succession dispute, however, Ivan managed to place the Crimean khan Meñli I Giray's stepson Möxämmädämin (Muhammed Amin) on the throne of Kazan.

[5] In 1452, Vasily would grant the former a small fiefdom known as the Qasim Khanate, centred on the town of Kasimov on the Oka River, with revenues collected from neighbouring Ryazan.

[14] The death of Mäxmüd of Kazan in 1466 or 1467 triggered a war of succession in the khanate between his son Ibrahim and his brother Qasim, the vassal of Ivan III (succeeded Vasily in 1462).

[7] Ivan's army sailed down the Volga, with their eyes fixed on Kazan, but autumn rains and rasputitsa ("quagmire season") hindered the progress of Russian forces.

The Russians marched downstream and ravaged the neighbourhood of Kazan but did not dare to lay siege to the Tatar capital because Qasim's widow had pledged to negotiate an advantageous peace with Ibrahim (her son).

The Russian commander, Prince Daniil Kholmsky, besieged Kazan, cut off water supplies, and compelled Ibrahim to surrender.

[citation needed] Ivan failed to get Qasim on the throne of Kazan, and had to recognise Ibrahim as the legitimate successor in a 1469 peace treaty.

[7] Under the terms of the peace settlement, the Tatars set free all the ethnic Christian Russians they had enslaved in the forty previous years.

The last war of Ivan's reign was instigated by Ilham's widow, who married Moxammat Amin and persuaded him to assert his independence from Moscow in 1505.

The rebellion broke out into the open on Saint John's Day, when the Tatars massacred Russian merchants and envoys present at the annual Kazan Fair.

[citation needed] Ivan's death prevented hostilities from being renewed until May 1506, when Prince Fyodor Belsky led Russian forces against Kazan.

Moxammat Amin withdrew to the Arsk Tower but, when the Russians started to celebrate their victory, ventured out and inflicted an excruciating defeat on them (June 25).

Although it was the most brilliant Tatar victory in decades, Moxammat Amin – for some reason not clearly understood – resolved to sue for peace and paid homage to Ivan's successor, Vasily III of Russia.

Instead, the famous Makariev Fair was inaugurated downstream from Nizhny Novgorod, an establishment which undermined the economical prosperity of Kazan, thus contributing to its eventual downfall.

Belsky's huge army spent 20 days encamped on an island opposite Kazan, awaiting the arrival of Russian cavalrymen.

The khan had fortified his capital and built a new wall, yet the Russians set the city ablaze, massacring their rivals utterly (according to Rus' chronicles[which?])

record about forty attacks of Kazan khans on northeastern Rus' territories (mainly the regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Murom, Vyatka, Vladimir, Kostroma, Galich) in the first half of the 16th century.

[18][non-primary source needed] While Ivan IV was a minor, border skirmishes continued unabated, but the leaders of both powers were reluctant to commit their troops to open conflicts.

In 1545, Ivan IV mounted an expedition to the Volga River, mainly in order to flex muscles and to show his support for pro-Russian factions.

The tsar celebrated his victory over Kazan by building several churches with oriental features, most famously Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow.

The Tsar responded with a policy of Christianization and Russification of his Tatar subjects and other indigenous peoples, an approach not reversed until the time of Catherine the Great (reigned 1762–1796).