rusnia

Ukrainian word for "russians"

Ukrainian word for "russians"

Rusnya (cyrrilic: русня) is an derogatory name for Russia (country), first coined and popularized by Shamil Basayev, one of the most-wanted Chechen terrorists in the world (according to ABC News), who masterminded several of Russia's worst terrorist attacks like Beslan School siege.

Basayev, who represented Chechnya, believed that the word Chechnya sounded dissonant and always called it Chechenia. He also wanted to come up with a word for Russia that would be consonant with Chechnya and sound derogatory, so he came up with the word Rusnya (Rus + nya)

Basayev pronounced the word rusnya in his video messages, accompanied by video recordings of executions/terrorist attacks. Clips from these video messages (with the executions cut out) are still on the Internet.

Supporters of Basayev's terrorist acts further popularized the term 'rusnia'. Subsequently, the term was also borrowed by Ukrainian nationalists as derogatory term for Russians.