Editing Great Game (section)

===Russia's perspective===
{{further|Kazakh Khanate}}
[[File:Growth of Russia 1547-1725.png|thumb|Russian expansion 1547–1725]]
[[File:Siberian_Cossack_190x.jpg|thumb|[[Siberian Cossack]] c. 1890s]]
In 1557, [[Bokhara]] and [[Khiva]] sent ambassadors to [[Ivan the Terrible|Ivan IV]] seeking permission to trade in Russia. Russia had an interest in establishing a trade route from Moscow to India. From then until the mid-19th century, Russian ambassadors to the region spent much of their time trying to free Russians who had been taken as slaves by the khanates.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=9}} Russia would later [[Russian conquest of Siberia|expand across Siberia]] to the Far East, where it reached the Pacific port that would become known as Vladivostok by 1859. This eastward expansion was of no concern to the British Foreign Office because this area did not lie across any British trade routes or destinations, and therefore was of no interest to Britain.{{sfn|Mahajan|2001|p=13}}

Beginning in the 1820s, Russian troops would begin to advance southward from Siberia in search of secure boundaries and reliable neighbors. This advance would not cease until Russia's frontiers and her sphere of influence were firm in the Central Asia, and this would include Bokhara and Khiva.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=xvi}} Between 1824 and 1854, Russia occupied the entire [[Kazakh Khanate]] (modern-day Kazakhstan). This raised Russo-Khivan tensions in addition to Khiva's legal discrimination of Russian merchants who were just beginning to penetrate Central Asia, and the ongoing issue of Russian slaves. Russia launched an attack in 1839–1840 but it failed to reach Khiva because of the tough terrain and weather. However, the khan of Khiva feared a further Russian assault and released a number of Russian slaves.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=10}}

During the 1840s and 1850s, Russia's aims in Central Asia were for Bukhara and Khiva to refrain from hostile actions against Russia, cease possession of Russian slaves and the granting of asylum to Kazakhs fleeing from Russian justice. Khiva must cease her attacks on caravans along the [[Syr Darya]]. Russian merchants must be allowed to trade on the same terms as native merchants in Bukhara and Khiva. The khanates must guarantee the safety of the persons and property of Russian merchants, levy no excessive duties, permit unhampered transit of goods and caravans across Central Asia into neighboring states and allow Russian commercial agents to reside in Bukhara and Khiva, and free navigation on the [[Amu Darya]] river for Russian ships. None of these aims was realised.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=10}} Russia's borders remained insecure and in addition there was growing British influence in the region.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=12}}

In 1869, when British diplomat [[George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon|Clarendon]] proposed the Amu Darya river as the basis for a neutral zone between British and Russian spheres of influence, [[Alexander Gorchakov]] proposed Afghanistan as the neutral zone.{{sfn|Becker|2005|p=47}} Russia feared the influence that a Muslim power with British support might have on the other khanates in the region.{{sfn|Ewans|2002|p=66}}

The Russian Empire sought to expand its access to strategic coastlines such as the Black Sea, Persian Gulf, and the Pacific. Russian war plans against British India were developed during the [[Crimean War]], presented to the Tsar in 1854 and 1855.<ref name=":22"/> These were the [[Duhamel plan]] and [[Khrulev plan]].<ref name=":32"/> According to historian Evgeny Sergeev, the Great Game represented a great power competition that did not initiate only with Russia's defeat in the Crimean War in 1856, but was already well underway and was only intensified thereafter. Expansion into Central Asia was closely connected with ambitions in India.<ref name=":22" /> Historian Alexandre Andreyev argued that the rapid advance of the Russian Empire in Central Asia, while mainly serving to extend the southern frontier, was aimed to keep British eyes off of the [[January Uprising|January uprising]] in Poland.<ref name=":42">{{Cite book |last=Andreev |first=A. I. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51330174 |title=Soviet Russia and Tibet : the debacle of secret diplomacy, 1918-1930s |date=2003 |publisher=Brill |isbn=90-04-12952-9 |location=Leiden |pages=13–15, 18–20 |oclc=51330174 |access-date=1 September 2021 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202650/https://www.worldcat.org/title/51330174 |url-status=live }}</ref> Andreyev states that, as late as 1909, strategists of the Russian Empire sought to use Afghanistan to "threaten India... to exert influence on Britain", quoting [[Andrei Snesarev]].<ref name=":42" /> According to diplomatic historian [[Barbara Jelavich]], it was logistically not possible for the Russian Empire to invade India and was not seriously considered, however the Tsars understood that making invasion plans threatening the "jewel" of Britain's empire was a way to extract more favorable outcomes in Europe.<ref name=":042">{{Cite book |last=Jelavich |first=Barbara |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796911 |title=St. Petersburg and Moscow : Tsarist and Soviet foreign policy, 1814–1974 |date=1974 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=0-253-35050-6 |location=Bloomington |pages=200–201 |oclc=796911 |access-date=4 September 2021 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202702/https://www.worldcat.org/title/796911 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Similarly to the British Empire, the Russian Empire saw themselves as a "civilizing power" expanding a purely humanitarian mission among the Turcomans into what they perceived a "semi-barbarous" region, reflecting the ideology of the time.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":22" />