I was talking to a 21 year old Russian recently and he mentioned that older Russians, like his mom born in 1978, were basically raised to see everyone except China as an enemy. His mom lived through the collapse of the USSR and genuinely thinks everything is worse now. No real free speech, you can't own anything, the system screwed everyone over
Of course he told me that not everyone is like that, and he isn't like that himself. He basically said it's more of a boomer Soviet generation thing, that they're the ones who are distrustful and xenophobic toward foreigners, and that younger generations don't really have a say in how the country is run anyway
I'm just curious to know if this is true, what's really going on in Russia, and what Russians are actually like when it comes to their opinions on foreigners
They also have the intrinsic eagerness to please westerners so they can sit at cool white people table, but that's sadly common everywhere outside the inner circle of the imperial core.
Yes. The desire to be "part of the club" is very strong, especially for those who spend a lot of time on Western online platforms and consuming Western media, which is why those 45 and below are afflicted so strongly with this and not the "boomers".