Putin's people (8)
I believe the answer is:
'putin's people' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
This is the entire clue.
(Other definitions for russians that I've seen before include "Muscovites etc -- as in USSR (anag)" , "People from the largest country" , "Gorbachev and Putin, for instance" , "Lenin, Stalin, etc" , "handlers of Blunt et al" .)