Ivan the Great had great diplomacy
One of the 10 Interesting Facts about Ivan the Great is that he the Great had great diplomacy. He developed relations with the Osman Empire, the Roman Empire, Venice, and Denmark (Dania).
During Ivan III's rule, Moscow renounced the Tatar yoke. Ivan III tore the Mongol khan's letter to pieces when he was made Grand Prince of Moscow and refused to pay tribute. Ahmed Khan prepared a military expedition against Muscovy in 1480 when Ivan failed to give him the annual tribute in 1476. The Muscovy and Tatar forces fought each other throughout the autumn on opposing banks of the Ugra River until Ahmed withdrew into the steppe on November 11, 1480. The Mongol era came to an end then. The Nogai Horde's Khan Ibak unexpectedly attacked, routed, and killed the Grand Khan while he was planning a second campaign against Moscow. Ivan made the Kazan Khanate, one of the Horde's offshoots, a vassal state in 1487, however, in his later years, it broke away from his suzerainty.
Ivan requested the assistance of Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus in 1488 in order to find gun founders, expert gunners for siege cannons, gold and silversmiths, and Italian master constructors.
Ivan had calm and even cordial ties with the other Muslim nations, including the sultans of the Ottoman Empire and the Khan of the Crimean Khanate. Meli I Giray, the Crimean Khan, supported him in his fight against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and made it easier for Moscow and Constantinople to establish diplomatic ties after the first Russian embassy there initially emerged in 1495.
Ivan III established an aggressive alliance with John of Denmark in Nordic matters and spoke often with Emperor Maximilian I, whom he addressed as "brother." In Ingria, he constructed a powerful citadel that bears his name and is called Ivangorod. It is located on the Estonian-Russian border across from the Livonian Confederation's fortified bastion of Narva. Ivan III tried in vain to take over Vyborg from Sweden during the Russo-Swedish War, but this assault was thwarted by the Swedish garrison in Vyborg Castle under the command of Lord Knut Posse.
