I think your opinion is about half-way right. To be clear, Putin isn't a great guy and Russia is very far from perfect. But they're not out to completely screw

I think your opinion is about half-way right. To be clear, Putin isn't a great guy and Russia is very far from perfect. But they're not out to completely screw over the entire world right now like the warmongers in power in the US for the last few decades. I'm a bit more skeptical of China's motives. But I don't think Russia's interest in doing this is for noble means like protecting Russians' privacy: most likely they want this data in country for easy collection of data on people for their own spying programs as well or other not-so-good purposes. Anybody who is concerned about internet freedom shouldn't support governments mandating where servers need to be located. If the US had some moral authority here right now, they might be able to call them out over some of these issues. But here's the thing: the US has been the boy that cried wolf for the last year. We've been trying to demonize them and discredit them and accuse them of interfering with elections just so a bunch of butt-hurt political operatives can fulfill their own political goals (overturn Trump, discredit Trump, and find somebody else to blame other than their own corrupt party). If the US made an official protest or something and tried to tell Russia what they're doing is wrong, everybody over there would just laugh.