Здравствуйте! Я с удовольствием помогу! I’m also trying to learn, but am still only on A1 level.

I’d say a native speaker can possibly help a lot, but they need a certain aptitude in teaching language for it to be effective, imho. I’ve lived in Estonia for some years now, and have native Russian speakers for friends. They can help at correcting and introducing words and sentences, but explaining and teaching the grammar and structure of the language in a manner that is efficient is challenging.

Growing up with a language, there are a lot of things that feel “natural” to you. One such thing in Russian is which case to use where: You ask yourself questions like “to/by what/whom”, and the answer yields the correct case. This doesn’t make sense to someone who is learning the language, and they have no way of explaining how something “sounds” correct. Therefore you just have to learn it by heart.

I’ve recently signed up for classes at Tartu University, and I’m hopeful of getting to practice with people who are at the same level as me, so we can cooperate on figuring out of things.

I’d love more language friends! :D Let’s share our resources and achievements!

Hope you find someone!

If no one gets to you here, I’d recommend HelloTalk for language exchange. It’s an app that pairs up native speakers of different languages. Has annoying nags about subscribing, but generally it’s free. Connected me with several Spanish speakers that I was happy to have talked to.