I am told that even street signs in Russian are torn down and not replaced rather than having them in Russian.
I've lived and worked in the Ukraine many times over a five-year period. Pre- and Post- Orange Revolution. They are getting a similar treatment in the Russian media these days.
I don't how much of the author's piece is true. I've only passed through the Baltic States, which are sort of like the Benelux - on the way from someplace interesting to someplace else interesting.
There is definitely no love lost between the 'aboriginal inhabitants' of the Baltic region and the Russians. I noticed on several train rides to Petersburg, how brutal the local customs agents were towards the Russians, but how courteous and friendly they were with the EU and US passengers.
During the first Chechyan war, the Russians captured and exhibited dozens of mercenaries from the Baltic States. Supposedly, none of them were Muslim, and all were ethnic European. There was a team of female snipers operating out of Grozny, called 'White Pantyhose', who racked up devasting losses on the Russian officer corps. The Russians managed to kill one of the snipers, and she was supposedly identified as a marksman (marksperson?) from one of the Baltic States' Olympic teams.
I was recently in Kazakhstan and went out to the site of a prison camp for politicals near Karaganda, in a village called Dolinka. There were mass graves there that had been excavated by the government of Lithuania. Supposedly, all the remains (Russians, Poles, Baltic, Chukchi, whomever) were carted back to to some memorial in Riga.
Here is a story about a ceremony commemorating another GULAG cemetary, near Karaganda.
We have Americans all bent out of shape about things that went on before George Washington was born, so just imagine how fresh the hate is after only a decade and a half free from Russian domination.