Okay, can you think of a reason Russia "only" attacked* Georgia and Ukraine in the recent past and not say Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania?
As a small nation you have two options:
I found this old but genius YouTube channel and after watching some videos I can say, you can definitely justify that with the Bible https://youtu.be/zeRDR1Ytzn0
I can understand why local governing is nice. You always feel more involved and represented when you actually know the people in your government. But the European Parliament is elected as well. I would personally support making it more important and taking some authority away from the commission and council. But other than that, I am actually relatively happy with the EU.
It brought many great things with it, especially free trade and free travel. If you are a citizen of any EU country and move to another EU country, you have almost the same rights as a full citizen of that country. I just love that. Crossing a border between EU countries is like crossing a state border. This makes the lives of so many people so much easier. The same applies for the many streamlined regulations.
In addition, I mostly also like the rulings of the EU. I lt often stops harmful laws from passing (especially things like censorship). Sadly, some countries just ignore EU law without much consequences, which has to be stopped in my opinion.
In some way, I think the EU actually gives some more power to the people. If you imagine Austria passing a low, the world may ignore that. But if the EU passes a law, it is important and the US or China must pay attention.
And I don't really know what you are talking about gun control here. I would never support wide spread gun ownership, since I personally really hate terrorism and enjoy the low gun violence rates. It obviously happens, but much less than in the US.
I'm not talking about the YouTube algorithm, I know that there are many problems with that. I just wanted to make the point that anyone can watch a show like Extra 3 or the Heute Show and see that they, in fact, do criticize the government a lot. May right-wingers say that they are leftist propaganda and apparently leftists thing they are conservative propaganda, which I find quite interesting. And I obviously also don't like all the shows either. There is a reason why I stopped watching Kurtzgesagt years ago.
What do you not like about the EU and do you think Germany should leave the EU?
Okay, even if the Soviet Union still existed if NATO did not form, how would that be a good thing? You know they conquered the countries like Poland? They actively fought for their freedom. And even today you can see that Russia tires to expand its sphere of influence using force and violence. They are an oppressor, not an ally.