Yes, you would have to use a service like a VPN to open ports in that setup. You mentioned you USB tether from your phone. Do Russian providers use datacaps? Datacapping is common in the US, but almost non-existent in other parts of the world like EU territory, so I was curious. For US, it can be bypassed with TTL mangling on 4G LTE networks, but on 5G its a bit trickier and requires a GRE tunnel to be established between the phone and end device. Just curious if you guys have similar issues.
Honestly, the VPN would just be for opening ports for technical reasons, though. Russian VPN anonomity isn’t really a thing, but that anonomity is only used to circumvent US copyright law and any international application of US laws (countries have their own copyright laws I understand, but the US does strong-arm countries into adopting more US-centric versions). If your host country does not recognize those things, then I would imagine that becomes a non-issue for you.