nah, the quotes of fedor and esp his manager are definitely implying that there is a distinction between russians and the slavic belarusans (whether they are technically correct or not is immaterial) and that the slavs are weaker. i don't know all of the dynamics about the issues between former soviet states and 'russians' but the above is pretty clear IMO. If it were just a matter of stating facts, why say anything at all?
Because some people like to group everything east of germany together as "those russians"? I don't really see any reason to make this comment out to be anything else than pointing out that Arlovski isn't russian, but belarussian.
Exactly. Maybe they translated wrong but I'm part Russian part Belarussian and don't find anything offensive about those comments the way they were stated.