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In Russia they would ask for your internal passport (aka the "ID") and put your name, birth date, and registered address into their database. It's illegal to sell sim cards without that.

When I traveled to Europe recently and bought a French tourist sim, the carrier warned me multiple times that I need to provide my identity to continue using it beyond 30 days.

In UAE it's about as strict as in Russia.

Yep. When I tried to get a SIM in India, it was a nightmare as a non-national. I had to get a local colleague to get one.

NL here, no ID check whatsoever

As long as there are no id-checks required for roaming and there is at least one country without id-checks, any id-check for local SIMs is security theater only.