Ruskie is a plural adjective or a plural noun. When it's used as a noun it's pejorative for Russian people. When it's used as an adjective - it's neutral (and

Ruskie is a plural adjective or a plural noun. When it's used as a noun it's pejorative for Russian people. When it's used as an adjective - it's neutral (and can be used both for russian and ruthenian stuff). There's also more specific words - rosyjskie for russian and rusińskie for ruthenian, but very few people use "rusińskie" nowadays. BTW there's this joke from communist times: A waitress in a milk bar shouts "who ordered ruskie", someone in the bar shouts back "nobody, they came on their own".