The Last Ringbearer came out in 1999. It was a Russian LOTR fanfiction from the perspective of Mordor. In it the "orcs" are just normal humans who are dehumanized by the men of the west. It was a pretty big deal in the former USSR. So it probably wasn't you.
In this war the term Orc was popularized by an english tweet from Azov about greasing up their bullets to deal with Chechen orcs. So originally the term orc only applied to Chechens (and probably other Muslims in the Russian Federation).
This part's not actually true yet.