Many of them don't live in Russia.
Some of the best engineers that I've worked with (in the US and Europe) are Russian. I've also been quite impressed with other former Iron Curtain developers. A lot of Chinese folks I've worked with have been good.
I know that some nations are known for threatening the relatives of expats, to get them to work on their behalf. Not very nice.
But state-sponsored Russian (or other nations, as well) is definitely something to be concerned about. I suspect a number of folks are concerned about the influence of American programmers. The CIA is known for using fairly innocuous employees of NPOs. My father was one.