30 January 1950, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics established an embassy to North Vietnam. The USSR was traditionally one of Vietnam’russian foreign minister in vietnam strongest allies. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, friendly relations were established between Vietnam and the Russian Federation, the USSR’s main successor state. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the Soviet Union became a benefactor to the country during the 1980s until the USSR collapsed in 1991, leaving Vietnam with a weakened ideological, economic and military ally.
Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of Russia, visited Vietnam in July 2009. Relations between the two countries have developed positively,” Lavrov said. We are convinced that the bilateral cooperation will be at a high level. Vietnamese viewing Vladmir Putin’s influence negatively- making Vietnam one of the most liked countries by Russia. The military cooperation between Russia and Vietnam had fallen off since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In November 2014, against the backdrop of intensified diplomatic confrontation between Russia and the West referred to by some as Cold War II, an agreement was signed by Russia and Vietnam that significantly simplified the use of the Cam Ranh Base by the Russian Navy. Amid hostility towards migrant workers, around 600 Vietnamese were rounded up in Moscow and placed in tents while waiting to be deported from Russia in August 2013.
On January 9, 2009 a group of people in Moscow stabbed a Vietnamese student named Tang Quoc Binh, a 21 year old. The wounds from the attack were fatal resulting in his death the next day, on January 10. On October 2004, Russian skinheads in St Petersburg stabbed and abused a 20 year old Vietnamese student Vu Anh Tuan which resulted in his death. 17 of them were tried for his murder and in October 2006 were acquitted by the court.
A protest was held by 100 Vietnamese against the murder of Vu Anh Tuan and a protester said “We came to study in this country, which we thought was a friend of Vietnam. We do not have drunken fights, we do not steal, we do not sell drugs and we have the right to protection from bandits. On Festivalnaya Street, Moscow in 2008, a group of young men stabbed a 35 year old Vietnamese woman and she died of her wounds. In Moscow on December 25, 2004 a crowd of people used clubs and knives to attack 2 Vietnamese students at the Moscow Energy Institute. Nguyen Tuan Anh and Nguyen Hoang Anh suffered severe injuries and were hospitalized. Vietnam in 2008 approved the use of atomic power for civilian purposes, and Russia has already said it would like to take part in the planned programme.
Khiem said the two sides also reaffirmed their traditional relations in other fields, including defence. That report came after the Russian newspaper Kommersant said Vietnam was also about to sign a deal for six Russian submarines. Vietnam’s President Triet, on a visit to Moscow on October 2008, signed a pact for Vietnamese and Russian firms to develop energy fields off the Vietnam coast. In the late 2000s, Russian influence in Vietnam has begun to grow again but remains far below that of Soviet times. On Saturday July 25, Vietnam and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding between their respective atomic energy agencies but no details were released. Cooperation on atomic energy will be a priority”, Lavrov said. Preliminary Vietnamese government data show that exports to Russia totalled almost 139 million dollars in the first five months of 2009 while imports were valued at about 525 million dollars.
