Maybe decades of occupation made them realize they value their own culture and identity more than some woke Twitter user's western "liberalism". Maybe close experience with totalitarianism makes them skeptical of current western "liberalism".
Right now is probably the toughest moment for them. We have a really nice Omicron wave and their tax reform that went into effect on Jan 1st (primarily shifting money from local government, where opposition controls the largest cities, to healthcare) has failed extremely spectacularly. They ignored the whole process and the laws are overcomplicated (yet broken) crap, increasing the tax burden on most people. Oops!