Uma minoria de poloneses étnicos vive desde o início do segundo milênio nas partes do norte da Rutênia Vermelha. O exônimo "Rutenos" geralmente se refere a membros da etnia russina e/ou ucraniana.[3]
↑"The dominant population of Galicia, or Red Rus', called itself “Rusyn” ... and was considered by Russophile authors to be Russian, or, more specifically, Little Russian. That view began to gain ground after the publication in the Russian Empire of a Russian translation of Pavol Šafárik's Slovanský národopis in 1843." (Serhii Plokhy, Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation, New York, Hachette, p. 168.