I imagine that's the case in a lot of Europe but the Russian Orthodox Church doesn't really exist in the US, especially post-Ukraine war.

Only the super-dedicated ones.

I knew a guy in highschool, he was adopted from Russia by a Russian-Jewish family. He was raised Jewish. Somewhere after highschool he got dragged into dark spots of the internet. Him and a close friend of his converted to Eastern Orthodox and began dropping constant Nazi dog whistles. Explicit anti-semitism. Both were in the military, one was an Army Ranger. Their posts were reported to LE but nothing came of it.

I'm confident the Ranger would kill for fun if given the chance, and any evidence of his war crimes would be covered up.

Knew a totally different Orthodox convert. He converted in college, went to school for political science. Sucked on his cross necklace and told my sister she'd be going to hell. She thankfully broke up with him.

The Orthodox church attracts some real cretins in my experience.

I'm actually eastern orthodox and we do get a lot of this type, but plenty of them convert to catholicism as well. It seems to mostly be a matter of aesthetic preference. Not many convert to actual russian orthodox the way orthodox people mean it, because there simply are not very many ROCOR parishes in the US compared to other options.

Yes. There is a ton of Russian propaganda against the Catholic church claiming the current and last popes to be "anti-popes" and spawns of Satan, and all that, and it is exactly this progression Catholic Church-->Russian Orthodox Church which is under Putin's thumb.