Honestly, I feel like a lot of that was backlash to the insane number of Russians using cheats and hacks in Counter Strike, Ghost Recon, and Call of Duty. I played a lot around 2000-2010, and more often than not, if a match was ridiculously tilted, it was a Russian or Chinese player using wallhacks.
I mean, it was a thing far before that. Russia has been historically vilified in US culture, in many ways unfairly. Goes all the way back to red scare propaganda.
Probably just more pronounced lately given the trash fire of a war in Ukraine.