Thanks, and thanks also for your observation about Russians and Ukrainians here. They are almost all “old school,” meaning that they’re going to do their best to fit in, to be law-abiding and productive citizens, and to have thoroughly American kids who will know that this country gave them refuge and that they should be grateful for it.
Oh, and that line about younger people being easily swayed by propaganda...unfortunately they don’t have the wisdom to understand that governments of all stripes lie constantly, and we have too many like that on FR (notably one idiot who calls pretty much everyone a “Putin Puffer”). That’s a problem that we’re not going to fix - it is embedded in human nature - that’s why all of the wise men in history have white hair.
That has been my experience, and I have had a lot of very close contact. There were some young men demonstrating near our local Costco wanting to collect money to send to help the people of Ukraine. All of them were clean cut and fit. No one was making a spectacle out of themselves. They were the children of Ukrainians who had moved here, and they looked much better than most of the “local” kids. And this happens all the time here. When you see a neat, tidy, fit and wholesome looking young man around here... most of the time they are either Russian or Ukrainian.
Yes, I am not going to mention his name, because he has called me various derivatives of “Putin Puffer”. But anyone who watches the first part of this video short will know instantly who he is and will understand why even when he is trying to be pleasant, he typically comes across poorly. ; )