Nadene Goldfoot
There's lots of difference between the two nations as you will see. One was an EMPIRE!
Jews have lived within the borders of what is now the Commonwealth of Independent States, especially in the Southern provinces, since classical times. They lived in Crimea, Caucasus, Khazars, Lithuania, Turkestan, Russian Republic, Ukraine, Belorussia (White Russia), Uzbekistan, Moldavia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazazhastan, Tadjikistan, Kirghizia, and Turkemania. 
In 986 CE, Jews were in a disputation on the occasion of Duke Vladimir's conversion to Christianity. Jews immigrated to the Ukraine in waves from Khazaria, the Caliphate, and Byzantium between the 9th and 12th centuries.
A Jewish gate is mentioned in the 12th century in Kiev, and the Jewish Quarter there was looted in 1113. At this period, Russian Jews attended western yeshivot and answered questions from the German rabbis.
In the late 15th century, Jewish traders from Lithuania disseminated a Judaizing sect in Novgorod and Moscow and this came before a drastic reaction. In 1563, 300 Jews were drowned at Polotsk and Vitebsk on refusing to accept baptism into Christianity.
In 1667, the Jews were expelled from Eastern Ukraine when it was annexed to Russia ! There were clauses prohibiting Jews from visiting the country inserted in treaties signed by Russia with foreign powers in 1550 and 1678. Severe massacres occurred in Ukraine during the Chmielnicki and Haidamak uprisings in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Frankist and Hasidic movements originated in the 18th century Ukraine.
The first Empress Catherine ruled: (1725-1727) and in May 1727, expelled all Jews that lived in Little Russia (Malorossiya) now Ukraine. This order was countermanded after her death.
Catherine the Great/ Catherine II who ruled from 1762 to 1796 and her Jewish policy was marked by a combination of liberalism and coercion. On one hand Jews were allowed to register in the merchant and urban classes (1780), but permission was restricted to White Russia (1786). This marked the beginning of the PALE OF SETTLEMENT. During her last years, which were marked by reaction (1789-1796), she prevented the extension of Jewish settlement and in 1795, prohibited Jewish residence in rural areas.
Expulsion orders to leave Russia were issued in 1727, 1738, and 1742. In 1753, 35,000 Jews were driven out of Russia. In 1762, CATHERINE II permitted all aliens to live in Russia, EXCEPT JEWS!
In 1786, they were only allowed to live in towns, being the start of the Pale of Settlement. Karaites only received equality of rights with Christians this year. The countries that belonged to the Pale of Settlement, a region in the Russian Empire where Jews were allowed to live, include modern-day Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, and parts of Latvia and the western Russian Federation. The Pale was established after the Partitions of Poland in the 1700s and was abolished in 1917, which was the end of WWI.
1800's
In the 19th-20th century, the main problems were from Galicia and White Russia. Always an anti-Semitic center, the Ukraine was the scene of pogroms in 1905 and 1918-1920.
On the authority of the DERZHAVIN ON WHITE RUSSIA, a Council for Jewish Affairs was established in 1802. By 1804, the Pale was defined and restricted Jews in the villages(1807-1808), limited the activities of the KAHAL in the areas of religion and charity, and prohibited the traditional Jewish costume; but on the other hand, they tried to promote agriculture among the men (farming). The Jews remained loyal to Russia during Napoleon's 1812 invasion, and Alexander I (1801-1825) was benevolent at first. He became reactionary, and 20,000 Jews were expelled from the provinces of Vitebsk and Mohilev in 1824, and those remaining were forbidden to live near the frontier. About 600 oppressive enactments regarding the Jews were published during the reign of NICHOLAS I who regarded Jews as an injurious element. In 1827, military service was brutally imposed on Jews who were made into CANTONISTS. The frontiers of the Pale of Settlement were restricted in 1835 and remained effective until 1915. A censorship was imposed on Jewish books in 1836, and in 1844, the Kahal was abolished. Alexander II attempted to Russify the Jews by education and the gradual relaxation of restrictions, while the judicial law of 1864 had no anti-Jewish discrimination.
At this time, 65,000 Russian Jews were working on farms. Jews became prominent in economics, culture, and left-wing politics, social anti-Semitism now began to replace or reinforce the former religious prejudices.
When Alexander II in 1881 was assassinated, the Jews were blamed first off. The Russians held pogroms in the early 1880's. Jews were thought of as a foreign element and they had to be kept apart from the village population, which was shown in the MAY LAWS. The term "May Laws" most commonly refers to discriminatory Russian ordinances enacted in 1882 by Tsar Alexander III that restricted the rights of Jews. These laws prohibited Jews from settling in rural areas, leasing land, and doing business on Sundays and Christian holidays, and they were largely confined to the Pale of Settlement. The term can also refer to "may issue" laws, which give a government authority discretion over whether to issue a permit or license, such as a concealed carry permit.
This caused the vast emigration to the USA and elsewhere. In 1891, Jews were expelled from Moscow and a Numerus Clausus was introduced into high schools and secondary schools; they turned increasingly to ZIONISM, SOCIALISM (The Bund was founded in 1897) and the revolutionary movement which was good for Israel's future.
Czar Nicholas II and family (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; 18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918) was Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 1 November 1894 until his abdication in 1917.The Kishinev newspaper Bessarabets, which published antisemitic materials, received funds from Viacheslav Plehve, Minister of the Interior. These publications served to fuel the Kishinev pogrom (rioting). The government of Nicholas II formally condemned the rioting and dismissed the regional governor, with the perpetrators arrested and punished by the court. Leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church also condemned antisemitic pogroms. Appeals to the faithful condemning the pogroms were read publicly in all churches of Russia.
In private Nicholas expressed his admiration for the mobs, viewing antisemitism as a useful tool for unifying the people behind the government; however in 1911, following the assassination of Pyotr Stolypin by the Jewish revolutionary Dmitry Bogrov, he approved of government efforts to prevent anti-semitic pogroms. Czar Nicholas and his family were assassinated. The slaughter of the family and servants, which took place 100 years ago, was one of the seminal events of the 20th century.
A group for Jewish rights was founded in 1905 and in 1906 12 Jewish deputies were elected to the Doma, of the Liberal Party. Nicholas II vetoed them out. Official anti-Semitism reached a peak with the BEILIS case which was the terrible notorious long series of BLOOD LIBELS.
The PALE OF SETTLEMENT was, with Poland, the world's great center of talmudic study. Southern Russia, particularly Odessa, was the focus of the Hebrew literary revival and the place of origin of many remarkable individuals in Zionism and contemporary Jewish history. In 1914, the start of WWI, 5,600,000 Jews lived in the empire of the Czars including almost 2 million in Poland. Those living near war zones were deported en masse, and despite the 300,000 Jews in the Russian army, the community was made the scapegoat for the Russian defeat (expulsion of Jews from Kovno, Grodno, and Courland; and prohibition of Hebrew and Yiddish printing .
Right after the Revolution, the new government abrogated all anti-Jewish decrees (April 2, 1917 at the end of WWI) and Jews were in both the Kerensky regime and later in the Bolshevik Revolution (TROTSKY, ZINOVIEAV, SVERILOV) From 1918, Jewish departments were in national affairs and education. In April 1919, the Soviet government got rid of the non-communist Jewish institutions. The civil war included a wave of pogroms and the Soviet government proclaimed anti-Semitism a criminal offense. The policy of the Soviets changed the basis of the life of the small-time traders, etc, who had formerly constituted the great mass of Russian Jewry.
Russia was against religion. Observing traditional holidays was made impossible, but the older generation tried to hold onto it. The 1st generation of Russians abandoned tradition! Interesting as the Soviet government did not recognize the Jews as a nationality, but they discouraged Hebrew and persecuted Zionism. In the 1921-1929 period, the Jewish economic position improved.
The government set up settling Jews on the land in Ukraine, Crimea, and Biro-Bidjan. The American Jewish Agricultural Corporation supplied them, while not many were interested in becoming farmers. From 1930 onward, increasing efforts were made to discourage Jewish practices by the Russians. Some prominent Jews were removed in the purges of the 1930's.
In WWII, Western White Russia was annexed, and Western Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, Northern Bukovina, Bessarabia, Lithuania and Latvia led to the mass-deportation of Jews, especially the intelligentsia, from these regions.
The Nazis, who invaded Russia in 1941, aimed at exterminating the Jewish population; thus of the 500,000 Jews in White Russia, only half escaped to the interior and up to 200,000 were slaughtered. The Soviet government established a committee to appeal to World Jewry in 1941, but immediately had the Nazi peril passed, an anti-Jewish trend asserted itself; many outstanding Jews "disappeared." including most from Yiddish culture. Russia had open anti-Jewish manifestations that intensified the desire of Russian Jews to leave and they streamed out of Russia in large numbers when they were allowed to leave, many from cells being kept locked up for studying Hebrew. About half of Russia's 3 million Jews lived in Ukraine before WWII, but under Nazi rule, the Jewish inhabitants who had not fled to Russia were wiped out by the Germans and Ukrainians from 1941 to 1942.
Outside my apartment building with my Fiat and German Shepherd dog in Safed, Israel
I made Aliyah from USA in 1980 and sat in classes with Russian Jews then. There were many, and far better than I in learning a new language. They knew the learning process. Israel received almost 200,000 Soviet immigrants in 1990 alone and the stream continued in 1991. The official 1989 census put the Jewish population at 1,449,167 but it was thought that the real figure was considerably higher. Diplomatic relations with Israel were re-established in 1991, shortly before the liquidation of the USSR.
The problem is: Russia owned it all; and wants it back, on their terms only, starting with Ukraine. Watch out or you will be gobbled up by this Communistic country.
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