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Russian influence started as early as the 16th century when Ivan the Terrible founded Tarki in 1559 where the first Cossack army was stationed. The Russian Terek Cossack Host was established in lowland Chechnya in 1577 by free Cossacks resettled from Volga River Valley to the Terek River Valley. In 1783 Russia and the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kartl-Kakheti (which had been devastated by Turkish and Persian invasions) signed the Treaty of Georgievsk, according to which Kartli-Kakheti was to receive Russian protection.

In order to secure communications with Georgia and other regions of the Transcaucasia the Russian Empire began spreading her influence into the Caucasus mountains; It soon met with fierce resistance from the mountain tribes. In 1785, a holy war was declared on the Russians by Sheikh Mansur, who was captured in 1791 and died a few years later.

Following the incorporation of neighbouring Dagestan into the Empire in 1803-1813, Imperial Russian forces under Aleksey Yermolov began moving into highland Chechnya in 1830 to secure Russia's borders with the Ottoman Empire. In the course of the prolonged Caucasian War, the Chechens, along with many peoples of the Eastern Caucasus, united into the Caucasian Imamate and resisted fiercely, led by the Dagestani commanders Ghazi Mohammed, Gamzat-bek and Imam Shamil, but Chechnya was finally absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1859 after Shamil's capture.

The long and brutal war caused a prolonged wave of emigration until the end of the 19th century.[citation needed] Thousands of highlanders moved to Turkey and other countries of the Middle East, while Terek Cossacks and Armenians settled in Chechnya. During the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 the highlanders rose against Russia once more, but they were defeated again.[citation needed]

After the end of the Caucasus War, the region enjoyed a relative peace. By the end of the 19th century, major oil deposits were discovered around Gorzny (1893) which along with the arrival of the railroad (early 1890s), brought economic prosperity to the region (then administered as part of the Terek Oblast).

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