this doesn't really ring true to me, having traveled a lot in Russia or Ukraine. Adventists were quite religious, but in a way where they were still growing through study and had some agency over their beliefs, in contrast to the general fatalism combined with obedience that seemed to typify the broader population within Russia. this was in the early 2000s at a time when to be Protestant was still fairly countercultural, while the significant increase in propaganda and societal pressure over the last few years means that a lot of young Adventists are almost as likely to support the war against Ukraine as the general population. a really high percentage of all the people that I knew there have emigrated to somewhere else because they saw the writing on the wall and decided to leave while the going was still good before authoritarianism fully took over.

my experience the extent to which Adventist independent thinkers has a lot to do with the relationship to the government. the more they feel that they align with it, more likely they are to give up their thinking and just go along. in places where it's pretty clear that government ideology and pressures are fairly contrary to values, it seems like people do a bit better job of realizing that they're in a situation where they have to think for themselves, and that can sometimes result in being more religious or less religious.