The State of Israel is represented in the Russian Federation through an embassy in Moscow and a consulate-general in Saint Petersburg. Russia is represented in Israel through an embassy in Tel Aviv and a consulate in Haifa. Russia is a member of the Quartet on the Middle East. For many years, Israel was a haven for Russian Jews. This was especially the case during the aliyah from the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1990s.
Israel and the Soviet Union, Russia's predecessor state, were on opposing sides during the Cold War. However, the relationship between Israel and Russia has improved significantly since the early 2000s, with the election of the more pro-Israel Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and the election of the more pro-Russia Israeli leader Ariel Sharon. Putin has had a close relationship with long-serving Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Following the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war, relations took a downturn during Yair Lapid's tenure as Prime Minister of Israel. Relations improved after Netanyahu's return as prime minister, although cooler than they were before the war. Unlike many Western countries, Israel has maintained relations with the Kremlin, refused to impose sanctions against Russia, and rejected calls to send military aid to Ukraine. Relations became strained during the Gaza war. However, Russia continued to be Israel's biggest supplier of fuel and one of its biggest suppliers of crude oil during the Gaza war. While Russia condemned Israeli and American attacks on Iran in 2025 and 2026, it did not send military aid to Iran during the Twelve-Day War.
The Russian language is the third-most widely spoken first language in Israel after Hebrew and Arabic; Israel has the third-largest number of Russian speakers outside of the post-Soviet states and the highest as a proportion of the total population; in 2017 it was estimated that 1.5 million Israelis could speak Russian, which would amount to 17.25% of Israel's population. Over 100,000 Israeli citizens live in Russia, with 80,000 of them living in Moscow, while hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens live in Israel.
History
Soviet Union
With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin reversed his long-standing opposition to Zionism and tried to mobilize worldwide Jewish support for the Soviet war effort. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was set up in Moscow. Many thousands of Jewish refugees fled the Nazis and entered the Soviet Union during the war, where they reinvigorated Jewish religious activities and opened new synagogues. From late 1944, Stalin adopted an openly pro-Zionist foreign policy apparently in the belief that the new country would be socialist and would speed the decline of British influence in the Middle East.
In May 1947, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told the United Nations that the Soviets supported the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Soviet Union and its satellite states voted in November 1947 for the UN Partition Plan for Palestine.
The Soviet Union provided diplomatic support for the founding of Israel and supported its admission to the UN. On 17 May 1948, three days after Israel declared its independence, the Soviets officially recognized Israel.
Golda Meir was appointed Israel's ambassador to the Soviet Union; her term began on 2 September 1948 and ended in March 1949. She attended Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services at the Moscow Choral Synagogue. However, after Israel had been established, Stalin reduced his support, arrested the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and launched attacks on Soviet Jews.
Soviet-Israeli relations worsened from 1949 to 1952, but the USSR still gave some diplomatic support to Israel and remained mostly neutral in the Arab-Israeli dispute until 1954. The USSR adopted a clear position of support for the Arab states against Israel beginning in 1955.
Relations were severed by the Soviet government in June 1967 in protest of Israeli policy during the Six-Day War and immediately afterward. The Soviet Union supported Israel's Arab enemies with arms and training, and Soviet forces were deployed to Egypt during the War of Attrition in which they repeatedly engaged Israeli forces.
After the Soviets cut off diplomatic relations with Israel due to the Six-Day War, the Dutch embassy in Moscow established an Israel interests' section, which represented Israel in the Soviet Union until diplomatic relations were re-established in October 1991.
1990s
The Soviet Union resumed diplomatic relations with Israel on 18 October 1991, towards the end of Glasnost and Perestroika. The journalist Alexander Bovin became the first Soviet ambassador to Israel in 24 years. After the Soviet Union collapsed two months later, he continued to serve as Russia's ambassador to Israel.
The end of the Soviet Union caused massive immigration wave of Jews from the ex-Soviet states. Demand from the new immigrants caused many Russian-language newspapers to appear, and with the development of the multichannel television in Israel during the 1990s, many Russian channels started being rebroadcast in Israel. In November 2002, a new Israeli-Russian channel, Israel Plus, emerged.
On 19 October 1999, Defence Minister of China, General Chi Haotian, after meeting with Syrian defense minister Mustafa Tlass in Damascus, Syria, to discuss expanding military ties between Syria and China, flew to Israel and met with Ehud Barak, the prime minister and Defence Minister of Israel, where they discussed military relations. Among the military arrangements was a $1 billion Israeli-Russian sale of military aircraft to China, which were to be jointly produced by Russia and Israel.
In 1999, as foreign minister, Ariel Sharon began to court more friendly relations with Russia as a result of the large-scale immigration of Russian-speakers to Israel: "The Russian vote will decide the outcome of the [Israeli] election".
Relations between Israel and Russia were improved by Israeli opposition to the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, as well as Israeli support for IMF loans to Russia. Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov subsequently said that if he was an Israeli, he would vote for incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1999 Israeli general election.
2000s
The relationship between Israel and Russia substantially began to improve only in 2000, with the election of the more pro-Israel Vladimir Putin, and in 2001, with election of the more pro-Russian Ariel Sharon, who described Putin as "a true friend of Israel". In 2005, Vladimir Putin visited Jerusalem.
In 2006, Israeli troops found evidence of Russian made Kornet-E and Metis-M anti-tank systems in Hezbollah's possession in southern Lebanon. In 2007, in response to accusations that it was supplying terrorist groups with weapons, Russia said it was conducting inspections of Syrian weapons storage facilities to prevent the weapons from reaching unintended customers. This strained the already-deteriorating relations between Russia and Israel. In the same year, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, visiting as part of a government delegation, said that he was concerned particularly about the economic situation for the more than one million Russians living in Israel, and that "Russia will never allow any kind of violence against Israel".
Russia planned to sell advanced surface-to-air missiles to neighboring countries, and condemned Israel's actions in the Gaza War. Russia also sent 60 tons of tent, medicines, food and other humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.
2010s
In 2011, Putin said: "Israel is, in fact, a special state to us. It is practically a Russian-speaking country. Israel is one of the few foreign countries that can be called Russian-speaking. It's apparent that more than half of the population speaks Russian". Putin additionally claimed that Israel could be considered part of the Russian cultural world, and contended that "songs which are considered to be national Israeli songs in Israel are in fact Russian national songs". He further stated that he regarded Russian-speaking Israeli citizens as his compatriots and part of the 'Russian world'. In 2012, Vladimir Putin once again visited Jerusalem.
In April 2014, Israel took a neutral stance on the Russian annexation of Crimea at the United Nations, angering U.S. State Department and White House officials. During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Putin stated that "I support Israel's battle that is intended to keep its citizens protected". In August, Russia began increasing fruit imports from Israel, after banning food imports from the EU, Norway, United States, Canada and Australia. About two months later India and Israel started to export meat to Russia.
Relations between Israel and Russia further improved after the Russian military intervention in Syria in September 2015. From then until July 2018, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Putin met a total of nine times. In October 2015, Israel and Russia held meetings to coordinate over Syria, and avoid accidentally clashing or scrambling each other's communications while operating over the country.
In March 2016, Putin said the relations with Israel were special and based "on friendship, mutual understanding and the long common history". Putin stated: "Russia and Israel have developed a special relationship. 1.5 million Israeli citizens come from the former Soviet Union, they speak the Russian language, are the bearers of Russian culture, Russian mentality. They maintain relations with their relatives and friends in Russia, and this make the interstate relations very special". In a meeting with Netanyahu in June 2016, Putin described Israel and Russia as "unconditional allies" in "efforts to counter international terrorism".
Prior to and immediately after the 2016 United States presidential election, Israel began lobbying the United States to strike a deal with Russia over restricting the Iranian military presence in Syria in exchange for removing sanctions over Russian military action in Ukraine. Donald Trump was reportedly a favored candidate for both Russia and Israel, as Trump is widely seen, by both, as a strong supporter for Israel yet friendly to Russia.
In November 2016, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where he stated that “The memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust [...] should be forever etched in the history of mankind [...] This tragedy can never be repeated".
In December 2016, Netanyahu instructed Israel's UN delegation to skip a General Assembly vote on war crimes committed in Syria, under diplomatic pressure from Russia. The following day, Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin proposed postponing a vote on Security Council Resolution 2334 to condemn Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank until after the inauguration of U.S. president Donald Trump, in order to allow the new U.S. administration a say on the resolution, but this was rejected by other Security Council members.
In January 2017, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Israel and Russia were "working closely" together in an attempt to stop the extradition of dual Russian-Israeli citizen Alexander Lapshin from Belarus to Azerbaijan.
In April 2017, Russia recognized West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In March 2018, Israel declined to attribute the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal to Russia in its statement on the matter and refused to expel any Russian diplomats, drawing criticism from the United Kingdom. In May 2018, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated the Israeli government had opposed sanctions on Russia despite foreign pressure to support them.
At the 2018 Russia–United States Summit in July 2018, U.S. president Donald Trump and Putin agreed to cooperate in Syria to ensure Israel's security. U.S. National Security Advisor John R. Bolton later claimed that both Israel and Russia sought the withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria. Russia later offered to create a 100 kilometre buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Israel-Syria border which Iranian troops would be barred from, though this offer was rejected by Israel.
In September 2018, relations somewhat deteriorated after the Russian Defense Ministry blamed the Israeli military for the downing of a Russian plane after putting it in the path of Syrian air defence systems during an Israeli strike on Hezbollah targets in Syria. Although Putin initially absolved Israel, Russia subsequently upgraded Syrian air defences to the S-300 missile system over Israeli objections, refused Israeli offers to send a delegation to Moscow to resolve the dispute, and ignored attempts by the Israeli Prime Minister's Office to set up a meeting with Putin.
In December 2018, Russia backed Israel's security concerns over Hezbollah tunnels dug under the Israel-Lebanon border, urging Lebanon to resolve the issue. On 25 December 2018, Russia condemned an Israeli airstrike on a Syrian arms depot, claiming that the "provocative actions of the Israeli air force... directly threatened two airliners."
In December 2018, Israel reversed its stance on Crimea at the United Nations, voting to condemn Russian activity there. Israeli officials stated it did so at the request of the United States government. However, the following year in August 2019, Netanyahu declined to condemn the annexation of Crimea, stating that he had "nothing to add to what was done at the time" of the annexation, when Israel took a neutral position.