Right, the bitmap font I'm using now doesn't currently support the required characters for Russian (or any languages that require accents frankly). But if you had replaced both the font image + font data file, then started replacing the actual strings, would've assumed it would "just work".
I need to figure out a good/organized way of enlisting player help for translating the game - but for now would you mind emailing me your current font png, data file, and i18n/moonbase.properties (or mewnbase.properties) files so that I can take a look at what might be wrong? cairn4games@gmail.com