honestly, as a Russian, can't really say that him being Russian is that relevant here. Russian internet culture already gets quite right wing a lot of the time, so chances are he's just one of those guys who like to act like they're experts on other countries' politics. then again, I didn't hear much about the guy, so not excluding other possibilities here; just tired of Russia being equated to spies/hackers/bots because in english internet, that's about 95% of what I hear about my own country. I hate it too, but sorta stings, you know.

also, it became edgy to pretend to be Russian? first time I'm hearing about this, but I'm interested nonetheless.

P. S.: yes, yandex does hand your information over to the government, we already had a precedent with some guy's (iirc a protester) address being discovered because he used yandex taxi. so, avoid it. unless you want a translator that's actually decent with Russian because, shamefully, this is the best one I came across.