Tatiana and Alexander Zavgorodny, 68 and 69, moved to Brighton Beach from Moscow two years ago, and say they are saddened by the way their native country has been portrayed by the news media.
“[American news organizations] don’t have another way to answer for their misfortune,” Alexander said, referring to the surprise election of U.S. President Trump last year. “So they blame everything on Russia.”
Olga Khvostunova, a political analyst and researcher at the U.S.-based Institute of Modern Russia, moved to the United States seven years ago. She, too, finds the U.S. media’s coverage of Russia disturbing.
“I had higher expectations of the American media,” she said in a phone interview. “I’m not sure what the point is in demonizing Russia as a country here in the U.S.”
To combat possible negativity against Russians living in the United States, Khvostunova says her Institute makes a clear distinction between the Kremlin and the rest of Russia.
Still, Khvostunova says that, other than “news junkies,” many people don’t follow U.S.-Russia relations that closely and their hostility has little effect on people’s day-to-day lives.
Stephen Sestanovich, the former U.S. State Department’s ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union, referred to a popular U.S. television show that depicts two KGB spies impersonating Americans during the Cold War to make a similar point.
“The only way the Russian emigres I know stand out from other people is that they’re even more anti-Putin — and I don’t think they’re acting like this to deflect suspicion,” Sestanovich wrote in an email to The Moscow Times.
“I mean, this isn’t ‘The Americans.’”