Russia is located in the north of China. Chinese knew the name of Russia from nomadic peoples in the north, who speak Altaic (including Mongolian, Tungusic, etc.).
Altaic does not have the habit of placing “r “at the beginning of a word. To speak an “r” sound, a vowel must be added in the front.
For example:
Kyrgyz Language: Rus →Orus
Mongolian: Rus → Oros
But what is more interesting is the word “Russia” in Vietnamese: it turns the Chinese word “俄罗斯” into the Vietnamese phonetic and becomes “Nga La Tư”, or Nga for short.
However, Nga did not appear at any position in the word Россия.