Originally Posted by gRomoZeka
They probably mean that it isn't offensive in Russian, whatever people with dark skin may think. It may seem offensive only to those who applies their language rules to Russian.
In Russian it's a literary word, which means "A person of Negroid race", where Negroid is a scientific term, so the word "негр" (Negro) is absolutly neutral, no more offencive than "African" or "black".
By the way, isn't it stupid that "black" is ok, while "Negro", which means the same, only in other language, is not?