How to type Russian letters on a keyboard

Cyrillic is a different alphabet rather than a decorated Latin one, so it arrives as a keyboard layout and not as a shortcut. Adding it takes a minute and leaves your current layout alone.

Turn the layout on first

On a Mac, open System Settings, then Keyboard, then Input Sources, press Add and choose Russian. On Windows 11, Microsoft's own path is Start, then Settings, then Time & language, then Language & region; press the ellipsis beside your display language, choose Language options, and under Keyboards press Add a keyboard. Both put a switcher in the menu bar or the taskbar, and both leave your existing layout alone.

Switch between them with the input menu, or with Control and Space on a Mac and the Windows key and Space on Windows.

Which key types which letter

The standard Russian layout is not phonetic: it is the layout used in Russia, so the letters are where a Russian typist expects them and not where the sound would put them.

The Russian layout, key by key
Key	Types	With Shift	Letter
`A`	ф	Ф	Ef
`B`	и	И	I
`C`	с	С	Es
`D`	в	В	Ve
`E`	у	У	U
`F`	а	А	A
`G`	п	П	Pe
`H`	р	Р	Er
`I`	ш	Ш	Sha
`J`	о	О	O
`K`	л	Л	El
`L`	д	Д	De
`M`	ь	Ь	Soft Sign
`N`	т	Т	Te
`O`	щ	Щ	Shcha
`P`	з	З	Ze
`Q`	й	Й	Short I
`R`	к	К	Ka
`S`	ы	Ы	Yeru
`T`	е	Е	Ie
`U`	г	Г	Ghe
`V`	м	М	Em
`W`	ц	Ц	Tse
`X`	ч	Ч	Che
`Y`	н	Н	En
`Z`	я	Я	Ya

If you only need one letter

Switching layout is worth it for a word and not for a character. 0 of the letters here have a page of their own with the Windows Alt code, the Mac shortcut and the HTML entity, and every one of them can be copied from it. For one character, copying it is quicker than changing what every key on the keyboard does.

The key map above was read from the layout macOS ships, through UCKeyTranslate, rather than copied from a picture of a keyboard. Key labels are the ones printed on a US keycap.