I've heard good things about Fedora. It seems to be mostly set-it-and-forget-it while still being flexible enough for power users.
De-identified data is an oxymoron. Basically any dataset that's in any way interesting is identifiable.
Yes, there's a few with some quirky opinions. All of them will take money in some way.
I've never heard of that in my life
Nobody was kicked out for simply being Russian. People were kicked out because they work for sanctioned organizations.