Russia–Vietnam relations


Russia–Vietnam relations date back formally to 30 January 1950, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics established an embassy to North Vietnam.
Russia is a current ally of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and the few non-Orthodox allies along with India besides its loose ally ship with China and North Korea. Soviet Union was one of the first countries in the world to recognize and formally establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam, laying the foundations for strong and cooperative friendship between the two countries.

History

The first Vietnamese appeared in the USSR in the early 1920s. These were students from Comintern universities, mainly from the Communist University of Eastern Workers. About 70 Vietnamese passed through this system of communist education in Soviet Russia. Sam Ho Chi Minh studied in Moscow in the 1920s, along with other members of the Vietnam Communist Party.
The USSR was traditionally one of Vietnam's 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. Nearly 5% of the official count of the Vietnamese population in Russia is composed of students with Russian government scholarships. In January 2001, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Soviet-Vietnam ties, Russian president Vladimir Putin made an official visit to Hanoi, where he was received by Vietnamese president Trần Đức Lương. Bilateral trade amounted to $550 million in 2001; Russian exports to Vietnam included machinery and steel, while Vietnam sold textiles and rice. The two countries also maintained relations in the energy sector, with joint venture Vietsovpetro pumping crude oil from the Bạch Hổ oil field.
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. In rhetoric, Vietnam officially remains one of the world's last communist countriesthe communist hammer-and-sickle flag can still be seenbut it has embraced a market economy along with Asian and Western investment over the past two decades.
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."
Favorable perceptions of Russia in Vietnam have increased dramatically, with 93% of Vietnamese people viewing Russia's influence positively and only 8% of Vietnamese viewing Vladmir Putin's influence negatively- making Russia one of the most liked countries by Vietnam.

Military cooperation

The military cooperation between Russia and Vietnam had fallen off since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Soviet and Russian Navy had until 2002 maintained a presence in Vietnam at the US-built military base in Cam Ranh Bay which had been turned over to the Republic of Vietnam Navy and captured by North Vietnamese forces in 1975. By 1987, the Soviets expanded the base to four times its original size. The Soviet Union and Vietnam officially denied the base's existence. In 1988, the Soviet Foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze discussed the option of withdrawal from Cam Ranh Bay, and the reduction in forces was effected by 1990.Although Russian military presence no longer exist at Cam Ranh Bay, Russia is currently still using the existing base as a supply station allowed by the Vietnamese Navy.
An increasingly more assertive People's Republic of China in its claims to the Spratly Islands dispute has prompted Vietnam to gradually deepen its strategic relationship with India, another long-standing USSR and Russian partner and ally, and Russia itself, with the Russian government recently signing several military contracts with Vietnam involving the sale of six Varshavyanka-class submarines and twelve new Sukhoi Su-30MK2 multirole fighter aircraft. In addition, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved of a draft Russian-Vietnamese military cooperation pact towards the end of August 2013 formalizing the two nations' defense cooperation.
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. According to the US, Russia's intensified air force activities in the region that relied on the use of the base to refuel its nuclear-capable strategic bombers TU-95, engaged in "provocative" flights, including around Guam, home to a major US air and naval installation. In March 2015, according to the US, these actions caused the US military command to publicly voice concern and acknowledge its diplomatic intervention regarding the issue. Vladimir Putin has stated Vietnam as his "important ally" and will furthermore hope to resume military cooperation in the future.

Tensions

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 2005 in Moscow three Russians stabbed a 45-year-old Vietnamese man named Quan to death
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.

Bilateral trade and investment

Energy

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. along with the Gepard class frigate and a joint production in anti ship missiles as military ties are growing again.
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 telecommunications sector, Russia's VimpelCom on mid-July 2009 announced the commercial launch in Vietnam of its Beeline mobile service through GTEL-Mobile, a joint venture with a Vietnamese state-owned company. Lavrov was to travel Sunday July 26 to southern Ho Chi Minh City to meet local government officials there.
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.

Other

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. Vietnam's former wartime enemy, the United States, which normalised diplomatic ties in 1995, received Vietnamese exports worth more than four billion dollars in the first five months, the data showed. Imports exceeded 932 million dollars. By 2012 trade between the two nations has reached $3.5 billion
In March 2013, Eurasian Economic Community minister of trade Andrey Slepnev visited Hanoi to open talks on the possibility of Vietnam joining the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Diplomatic missions

;Of Vietnam
;Of Russia