I am currently filling out an application for a lecturer position in the UK, which includes a section on employment history.

Previously I was employed at a Russian university where my official job title was an engineer. However, the work that I did correspond more to a research assistant. The problem is that in Russia you need to be a PhD and go through an official selection procedure (that means for an organisation to open position, to select a pool of candidates, etc.) to get a research assistant position. So usually if your professor gets a grant, he/she usually tries to hire you on a less "complex" position from a bureaucratic point of view (especially if you are not a PhD).

Obviously, I don't want to describe all this country-specific stuff in my application. How do you think, is it OK to put a job title "research assistant" in the application? Are the universities likely to verify this information?