Because the alternate history series For All Mankind initially focused on a new kind of space race between the Soviet Union and the United States, nearly every actor who has played a Russian in that show has been of Russian descent. On top of that, including the most recent episodes in Season 5, when people speak in Russian, we get subtitles. As one easy example, Actress Svetlana Efremova, who plays mastermind Irina Morozova in For All Mankind, is from Novosibirsk, Russia. Ditto Costa Ronin, who was born in Kaliningrad and plays Leonid Polivanov in Season 5. But, as For All Mankind becomes a franchise with multiple series, the new show, Star City, is going back to the USSR in 1969 and 1970, and in this show, the performers are playing Russians, but nobody is speaking Russian, nor are there Russian accents.
For some viewers, this may be jarring at first, but the propulsive and addictive quality of Star City means that you’ll get used to it very quickly. And, as the star of the series, Rhys Ifans, and showrunners Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert tell Inverse, there really was no other way to make this all work.
