"战斗民族" is a word to descript Russian, is popular to young people in China, you can understand as a tag to Russian.
For example, in China we add “严谨” tag for German, because to most Chinese people, the impressive impression(or we can call it stereotype) to German and Germany product is rigorous.
And why young Chinese people add “战斗民族” tag for Russian, due to some news、videos and rumors about Russian, such as:
1. Russian tourists punch bear at zoo: http://www.tydknow.com/did-you-know-that-russian-tourists-in-a-polish-national-park-mistook-a-bear-for/
2. thousands of England fans beaten up by 200 Russians' in violent clashes in Euro 2016: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/euro-2016-vladimir-putin-russia-violence-england-fan-fights-doubt-a7087971.html
and so on.... let people think Russians are really strong, high fighting strength, robust, so “战斗民族” is a more suitable word to generalize.
Regarding the topic of “战斗民族” was hot in China famous forum "知乎"(similar with Quora),if u are interesting with it, pls find the link below: https://www.zhihu.com/question/21567651
Hi,Anna.
The answer is 'something like that'.
'战斗名族' is cyberspeak in China.