Croatia and Russia established diplomatic relations on 25 May 1992. Croatia has an embassy in Moscow and honorary consulates in Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, and Sochi. Russia has an embassy in Zagreb and honorary consulates in Pula and Split.
While geographically not close, Croatia and Russia are both Slavic countries and thus share distant language heritage. Both countries are full members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Croatia is a popular tourist destination with Russian travelers in spite of a drastic drop in the numbers after 2014 following the Russo-Ukrainian War that caused political tension between Russia and the European Union, to which Croatia had acceded in 2013.
At the end of 2016, Russian experts were cited as judging Russian–Croatian relations to be "cold" due to conflicting interests and alliances, primarily due to Croatia aligning itself with NATO, the United States, and the European Union in international affairs.
Background
Cultural and personal ties between Russia and persons from the territory of modern Croatia date far back prior to Croatian independence in 1991, such as a trip to Moscow by Croatian Catholic missionary Juraj Križanić in 1659 who later was exiled to Tobolsk in Siberia where he spent 16 years writing manuscripts that promoted Pan-Slavism.
Against the backdrop of the Illyrian movement, a pan-South-Slavist movement, regarded in Croatian historiography as part of the Croatian national revival (Hrvatski narodni preporod), some prominent Croats in the 19th century (the lands of modern Croatia then being largely part of the Austrian Empire, later Austria-Hungary) sought to develop a stronger relationship with Russia because "they saw in Imperial Russia a world power and brotherly Slavic nation from which they had hoped to gain help during the Croatian National Revival."
Croatian nationalist Eugen Kvaternik, who was one of the two founders of the Croatian nationalist Party of Rights, traveled, among other countries, to Russia at the end of 1857 and stayed there for most of 1858 hoping to enlist help for the cause of the Croatian independence from the Austrian empire (Russo-Austrian relations were poor in the wake of the Crimean War), but did not accomplish much. He later came to view Russia as a threat to the cause of the Catholics in the Croatian lands as he believed that Russia sought to enhance its own influence in the Balkans by promoting the Orthodox faith and therefore supported the Orthodox Serbs, whom he regarded as "Orthodox Croatians". One of the notable figures of the Illyrian movement, Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, maintained contacts with a number of Russian academics, slavists, university professors, his contact person with them being the Russian priest at the Russian Embassy in Vienna, Mihail Fjodorović Rajevski. He wrote to Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov in 1877: "You in Moscow know very well for how long South Slavs had been waiting for salvation. You also know that the eyes of the Slavs are fixed on you and that our hearts are full with you".
While Russia's relations with Serbia, a country popularly viewed as a traditional ally of Russia, deteriorated following the 1878 Congress of Berlin (Serbia viewed the terms thereof as unfavourable), her influence in the Croatian lands increased: the Party of Rights under Ante Starčević adopted a Russophile orientation, a tactic in their bid to achieve Croatian independence of the Habsburgs. Such aspirations notwithstanding, the visit to Saint Petersburg by Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph and his conference with Nicholas II of Russia in 1897 heralded a secret agreement between the two empires to honour and seek to maintain the status quo in the Balkans.
In 1914–1917, several formations of the Royal Croatian Home Guard within the Austro-Hungarian Army, as well as the Common Army′s (K.u.K.) regiments recruited from the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia (such as the 79th Infantry Regiment from Otočac), participated in the WWI campaigns fighting against the Imperial Russian Army in Galicia and Bukovina; they incurred heavy losses in August—September 1914 and especially during the first phase of the Russian offensive in June 1916.