Regarding the atrocities in russian army. Horrible thing. I can remember the scandal with the beheaded man during the Wagner campaign in Syria, never investigated AFAIK. How did we come to this? I don't know. Here is what I remember from 2010s.

e1.ru/text/politics/2010/07/28 (in Russian)

Those political camps of "Nashi" movement were annual in 2005-2013, the place is lake Seliger. Other events were less striking, but they were anti-US and anti-western in general.

CC @rf @3-toed-sloth