As I Russian (currently in the process of obtaining my Canadian citizenship), I feel much the same way. There isn't a lot I can add to what you just said, but regarding your last paragraph, I would just like to expand on the fact that the "propaganda encouraging hatred and strife" against US and the West in general is not so much a remnant of the Cold War, but rather a viewpoint that goes back centuries at this point. Perhaps it goes even as far as the religious split between Rome and Constantinople, with the clash of ideologies forever leaving an imprint on the Russian national psyche and damaging any sort of a possibility of a level-headed dialogue between Russia and its Catholic/Protestant neighbours. Don't get me wrong, it isn't about religion anymore, the underlying reasons for the conflict change and shift as time goes on. However, the split between the two sides is still (from the Russian side at least, I do not see as much antagonism towards Russia in the West as towards the West in Russia) largely about "spirit", with a lot of my friends who are still living there criticizing my appreciation of my new home as a love affair with the "soulless, capitalist, fake culture of the United States of America". Ugh.

Russia is not evil. It's wrong at times, and it's not the place that I'd like to live in anymore, but it's not evil. It's just a nation that has been stuck with, on one hand, a sense of superiority to the outside world, and, on the other hand, with a dire economic situation and with a great amount of the intellectual elite leaving all throughout the 20th century. I don't see a bright future for the Russian Federation for a long while, and the current attempts to sugarcoat this sad truth by the media and the government are just that, sad. Sad and deceitful.