The way I see it, both things are true - European politicians and major parties have stirred anger by their incompetence, AND Russia has exploited this anger for their own purposes.

EU has huge flaws, but it's still better than Russia. Germans, French and the British may not understand it, but us unfortunate enough to live next to Russia do. There is a reason why Poland, Baltic countries and now even Finland and Sweden joined NATO. Russia is ruled by evil, murderous tyrants (as is always has been), while EU elite is merely lazy, greedy and incompetent.

I'll choose pro-EU parties over pro-Russian parties as long as EU is not bombing children's hospitals and massacring civilians. I can only hope citizens of other countries do the same, or otherwise there's a pretty good possibility my country will face what Ukraine has suffered.

It's unfortunate that so many alternatives to mainstream parties in big EU countries are also more or less pro-Russian. One should be able to vote against the flaws of European Union without voting for closer ties with Putin.