Russian girl after pinching a Republican's bottom (5)

I believe the answer is:

nadir

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'bottom' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'russian girl after pinching a republican's' is the wordplay.
'russian' becomes 'n' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'girl' becomes 'Di'.
'after pinching' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'republican' becomes 'r' (abbreviation).
'n'+'di'='ndi'
'ndi' placed around 'a' is 'nadi'.
'nadi'+'r'='NADIR'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for nadir that I've seen before include "Lower one cannot get!" , "Dinar (anag.)" , "It's the depths" , "Rock bottom" , "Low point" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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