I have relatives who farm near Lake Baikal. Lutherans before and since they arrived there in 1910 from the Polish Russian border, had some nasty problems during the Stalinist regime, yet held fast to their beliefs and customs.
Their story has to be a frightening one, since the Ribbentrop- Molotov treaty and subsequent invasion of Poland/Russia by the nazis, and the prior “agreement” about the Polish state. The entire story of the Polish duchys and the destruction of the Polish officers by Stalin. The Russians are, first and foremost always liars. And they telegraph their fears, upon which they take action— like the shoot down of KAL 007. Xenophobic, the only way Putin can rule is to have an outside foreign enemy— to rouse the Stalinists and totalitarian/junta ruling groups. Freedom is dead more and more in Russia— and maybe that’s what they always intended, like a 10 year plan then back to the same old same old.