If you want to see the power of Russian state propaganda
@brb I'd get off Twitter, which is a cesspit for information and watch longer form videos on Youtube. There are plenty of Russian journalists smuggling out videos themselves and putting them on Youtube. A fantastic one in which a journalist goes around and asks Russians "what is a Fascist?" it's telling that the average joe walking the street knows the word "fascist" but has no idea what a fascist IS, nor why it is bad.
What do you think of a heterosexual? "I think it is bad and goes against, er, faith" that is the power of propaganda. A complete lack of understanding, but a hatred for something none the less. Propaganda fabricates hatred, it makes you hate something because "er, we are supposed to I suppose" even if you don't know what it is.
The current Russian state is built on the philosophies of Ivan Ilyin. A fascist before fascism was cool, you don't need to take my word for it. Listen to Putin, he quotes the man all the time, he even went to the village in Switzerland he died in (under exile) and returned his corpse to Russia. There was a state funeral for him.
Ivan Ilyin knew that the USSR would fall before it even got started, it was to a right winger like him an inevitability. So he wrote plenty of books about how Russia should look post USSR, these books have influenced a lot of Russian bureaucrats, Putin included, and are basically fascism with a sprinkle of religion on top.
In his texts, Ivan Ilyin writes about the "Ukrainians" or "Georgians" only in quotation marks, as in the say these people aren't real. They don't exist. They are fabrications that should be dominated by Russia, should have no language, no flag, no lands and no identity. The very identity of a Ukrainian is against God itself. The fact that people who follow this man, would invade a country, shooting Grandma's in the street, is no surprise at all. In Ilyin's teachings, if one was to suggest Ukraine was a nation, they were to be tried for treason.
You can see Ilyin's influence in the Russian state all over the place, once you learn more about him and how Russia as a state works.
I suppose a micro example in the UK would be Thatchers deep influence on the Conservative party, times 100.