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Siberian Tatars form the largest Turkic-speaking ethnic group in Western Siberia. The group has a complex hierarchical system of ethnographically diverse populations. Five subethnic groups of Tobol-Irtysh Siberian Tatars (N = 388 samples) have been analyzed for 50 informative Y-chromosomal SNPs. The subethnic groups have been found to be extremely genetically diverse (FST = 21%), so the Siberian Tatars form one of the strongly differentiated ethnic gene pools in Siberia and Central Asia. Every method employed in our studies indicates that different subethnic groups formed in different ways. The gene pool of Isker-Tobol Tatars descended from the local Siberian indigenous population and an intense, albeit relatively recent gene influx from Northeastern Europe. The gene pool of Yalutorovsky Tatars is determined by the Western Asian genetic component. The subethnic group of Siberian Bukhar Tatars is the closest to the gene pool of the Western Caucasus population. Ishtyak-Tokuz Tatars have preserved the genetic legacy of Paleo-Siberians, which connects them with populations from Southern, Western, and Central Siberia. The gene pool of the most isolated Zabolotny (Yaskolbinsky) Tatars is closest to Ugric peoples of Western Siberia and Samoyeds of the Northern Urals. Only two out of five Siberian Tatar groups studied show partial genetic similarity to other populations calling themselves Tatars: Isker-Tobol Siberian Tatars are slightly similar to Kazan Tatars, and Yalutorovsky Siberian Tatars, to Crimean Tatars. The approach based on the full sequencing of the Y chromosome reveals only a weak (2%) Central Asian genetic trace in the Siberian Tatar gene pool, dated to 900 years ago. Hence, the Mongolian hypothesis of the origin of Siberian Tatars is not supported in genetic perspective.

The Slavic branch of the Balto-Slavic sub-family of Indo-European languages underwent rapid divergence as a result of the spatial expansion of its speakers from Central-East Europe, in early medieval times. This expansion-mainly to East Europe and the northern Balkans-resulted in the incorporation of genetic components from numerous autochthonous populations into the Slavic gene pools. Here, we characterize genetic variation in all extant ethnic groups speaking Balto-Slavic languages by analyzing mitochondrial DNA (n = 6,876), Y-chromosomes (n = 6,079) and genome-wide SNP profiles (n = 296), within the context of other European populations. We also reassess the phylogeny of Slavic languages within the Balto-Slavic branch of Indo-European. We find that genetic distances among Balto-Slavic populations, based on autosomal and Y-chromosomal loci, show a high correlation (0.9) both with each other and with geography, but a slightly lower correlation (0.7) with mitochondrial DNA and linguistic affiliation. The data suggest that genetic diversity of the present-day Slavs was predominantly shaped in situ, and we detect two different substrata: 'central-east European' for West and East Slavs, and 'south-east European' for South Slavs. A pattern of distribution of segments identical by descent between groups of East-West and South Slavs suggests shared ancestry or a modest gene flow between those two groups, which might derive from the historic spread of Slavic people.

The results of the study of Y-chromosomal polymorphisms of Russian and Ukrainian population are presented for Slobozhanshina--contemporary border region, former "Wild Field" boundary, which was inhabited in XVII-XVIII centuries by both the Russians from the north and Ukrainians from the west. In general, Ukrainian and Russian populations of Slobozhanshchina genetically are very close, their set and frequency range of Y-chromosome haplogroups are typical for the Eastern Europe. But a detailed analysis of highly informative Y-chromosome markers showed that after 3,5 centuries of coexistence on the same historical territory, the both nations retain the ethnic specificity of their gene pools: Ukrainian populations are similar to the rest of Ukraine, and Russian populations are similar to the south of the European part of Russia. The genetic differences may be due to the spatial characteristics of marriage migration and the predominant ethnic environment.