In response to Russia's forcible annexation of parts of Azerbaijan and Georgia – territories in which it also had an interest – Persian forces moved against Russian forces in the region, sparking the Russo-Persian War of 1804–13. Alexander I (r. 1801–25) launched military strikes in turn against Persia through the Caucasus and against Central Asia's great Kazak area from his empire's southern frontier. The war ended with the Treaty of Gulistan, in which Persia recognized Russia's annexation of additional territory in the Caucasus.

Conflict with Iran was nothing new for Russia. Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725) expanded into the Caucasus region in 1722, taking advantage of both the end of the Great Northern War, and the fall of the Safavid dynasty, to push south. In 1795, urged on by the English and French, who sought to limit Russia's expansion southward, Persia sent an army into Azerbaijan and Georgia, and fighting continued intermittently from then on, until the outbreak of all-out war in 1804.