“It could also be that Evangelicals in Russia have freedom to promote Christ and hold their meetings and services, while holding the line on homosexuals and Muslims.”
Well, that’s certainly not true. You have all the freedom in the world to practice Russian Orthodoxy under the Moscow Patriarchate, everything else is at the regime’s discretion.
I have good friends who are Baptist missionaries in, respectively, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moscow.
Only the one in Belarus discusses any problems. The other two claim little or no harassment.