Increasing globalisation and intensified cross-border cooperation, accompanied by technological breakthroughs, have revealed a new phenomenon of innovative internationalising firms. Are innovative firms really more internationally oriented and more successful in their international activities? There is theoretical evidence on interdependence between innovation and the decision to internationalise; hence the nature of this relationship remains unclear. We analysed the cross-sectional and cross-industry data collected from 200 innovative firms in Russia. Our findings suggest that the degree of a firm's innovativeness, whether it is product, technological, or marketing innovation, does not necessarily push the firm to internationalise. However, if the firm already operates on foreign markets, its innovativeness in introducing new technological processes and in positioning its products and/or services provides a significant increase in the firm's international performance, in terms of both scale and overall satisfaction with the achievement of objectives in foreign markets.