They've started posting a link to ask them anonymous questions a few weeks ago and answering the questions on their whatsapp status. And those questions were getting weird to a point where my partner and I had a betting pool on whether they're shitposts or bullying.
Today I noticed that "sent with ♥️ by team ngl" text at the bottom and downloaded that app to check. And yup, they're just random default questions:
It seems like no one has ever sent a real question. I need to share this to distribute my bewilderment
Oh hey we're in the exact same boat! My parents are from Russia too and moved to Germany about 20 years ago. If the bureaucracy here wasn't that slow, they would have had citizenship by now and 100% both voted AfD.
We never had a decent relationship and I'm not concerned about preserving anything, so the goal is to just fully cut all contact at some point 🤷
Until then, I just act ignorant whenever they bring up politics (like literally pretending to not know who Trump is, because "what, why would I pay attention to niche american politics, they're literally an ocean away??").
Works pretty well, sometimes it even does make them retrospect about why they would care so much about seemingly random topics (because Russian propaganda channels train them to react to specific buzzwords).
Ultimately, I don't think they would ever change into better people and any energy put into changing their minds would be better used somewhere else.