Transliterations make it easy to confuse the difference between the grammatical endings of русский (singular, masculine adjective used as singular noun) and русские (plural adjective used as plural noun). The end of English "Russkie" is pronounced more like the end of "русский", while the plural "русские" would be something like RUSS-key-yay in English, ROOS-key-yay in Russian.
The general rule for making singulars plural in English is adding -s. The general rule for Russian nominative-case adjectives is adding -ые or -ие. Granted, native Russian speakers often speed through and slur unstressed grammatical endings, so the difference isn't always discernible in speech.
Whatever the rules, eventually whatever is easier for locals to say will be what people go with.
> The only other Slavic-to-English example of this sort I know is pierogis, from Polish (the nominative singular form is pieróg).
Not speaking Polish whenever I heard "pierogis" in English, I assumed all Americans meant was Russian "pirogi". So was expecting fluffy yeast leavened baked goodies, instead I got boiled vareniky/pelimini/dumplings.
Pelmeni (пельмени) sometimes becomes pelmenis, but like with pierogi I usually see the plural form without the `s` in English (in America at least).
I think "blintzes" too, from Yiddish `blintse` by way of Slavic.