Head coach Nikolay Nerush has made four of the switches in the pack, with the suspension to Valery Tsnobiladze handing Vladislav Korshunov his chance.
Vyacheslav Grachev, Alexander Voytov and Ivan Prishchepenko also start, with Andrey Garbuzov named on the bench and Denis Antonov and Alexander Khrokin omitted from the match-day squad.
In the backs, Yury Kushnarev is preferred to the benched Konstantin Rachkov at fly-half, while Alexey Makovetskiy starts in the centres ahead of Sergey Trishin.
Vladimir Botvinnikov and Alexander Shakirov are also included among the replacements.
Russia: 15 Vasily Artemyev, 14 Denis Simplikevich, 13 Andrey Kuzin, 12 Alexey Makovetskiy, 11 Vladimir Ostroushko, 10 Yury Kushnarev, 9 Alexander Yanyushkin, 8 Victor Gresev, 7 Vyacheslav Grachev, 6 Artem Fatakhov, 5 Adam Byrnes, 4 Alexander Voytov, 3 Ivan Prishchepenko, 2 Vladislav Korshunov (captain), 1 Sergey Popov.
Replacements: 16 Evgeny Matveev, 17 Vladimir Botvinnikov, 18 Alexey Travkin, 19 Andrey Garbuzov, 20 Alexander Shakirov, 21 Konstantin Rachkov, 22 Mikhail Babaev.
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