Quote Originally Posted by Barmaley
Quote Originally Posted by Dusik
even though they are citizens of russian federation, but not russians. russians is a nationality.
Of course "they" are Russians. You may make the distinction within the Russian language between Русский and Россиянин but no such distinction exists within the English language. And arguably, when most people refer to "Russia/Russians" they mean Russia the country, not the ethnicity.

in tatarstan live tatars
Actually you're only partly right. Only about half of Tatarstan is ethnic Tatar -- the other half is ethnic Russian. And there are plenty of Tatars elsewhere in Russia. It's not as if they throw them all in one republic and build a giant fence around it to pen them in. And furthermore, there are plenty of ethnic Russians who have adopted Islam -- your religion isn't mandated by your ethnicity.
More accurately, English doesn't destinguish between Российский and Русский - Bothe = Russian.

In English Russian includes all citizens of the Russian Federation, whether ethnic Russians, Tatars, Jews, Chechens...