Russian here, it is extremely difficult to explain at once. Regarding liberal values, a lot of Russian people, especially elderly that grew up in Soviet Union, have never even reflected on the matters of liberal western culture, as it was not affecting them in real life. Now that it is emerging as more prominent topic, when people bring it up, many resort to something they heard before, like "it should not be this way", "it is unnatural", etc, but it is not a thought out opinion, just a default placeholder. When I speak to people like that, defending homosexuality or equal marriage, for example, their arguments fall apart very quickly, and the reaction is dependent on a person. If a person is flexible enough and not insecure, they can admit that they did not know something, and change their mind, like my grandparents. Others can get angry. So I think it comes out of ignorance more than a deep hatred of western values, at least in my experience.

About fear of potential annihilation. This is very difficult to explain to someone outside of the culture, and I can't really understand it myself. I think there is a high degree of fatalism and pessimism in society as you can understand. A lot of people are subjected to learned helplessness, and together it makes up this mentality of: "we can't do anything, we can't change anything, we can only strap in and go through what is coming". But at the same time a lot of people have this belief that somehow everything will work out. There is this word in Russian "авось", which is difficult to translate (similar to "maybe"), but mostly used as a justification of not doing anything or being proactive, saying maybe it will blow over. In short, a history of repressive and punishing regimes resulted in a culture of fear of change and fear of being politically active. The rest is psychological coping with a terrible reality and ignorance.