I think this is easy to dismiss based on the headline, but I thought it was actually an interesting presentation of thoughts and opinions on the matter that actually originate in Ukraine and other countries nearby. I think this stands in contrast to a lot of the quick, vapid reactions we saw around boycotting everything "Russian" last year as shows of bullshit solidarity. I think this actually does a decent job of at least presenting some explanation of people who do truly believe that (e.g. Ukrainians, Georgians), even if you might not find their reasoning convincing. And the author does attempt to address their own perception of those arguments in good faith, performing a literary and historical analysis of the prominence of Russian novels in our culture and with respect to what relationship if any they have to the current politics in the region.

If you'd read the story, you'd know that they did.

"It will test your head, and your mind, and your brain too." - Dewey Finn

I don't think reading books is inherently "beneficial." You get out of books what you put into them. If you are reading with the purpose of improving your grammar or vocabulary, then any sort of novel can aid with this. If you are looking to expand your stylistic influences for your own writing, any works can help here if you are deliberately paying attention to the style of what is written. If you want to improve your critical and analytical skills, you can do so by evaluating what you have read against whatever critical framework you want to use, others' or your own.

I think there is a commonly held belief that just by reading you will become "smarter." I don't think this is true. I think you really have to work and read with intention to get any such benefits. School often directs this type of work by forcing you to do this to succeed in language and literature classes. E.g. you have to write book reports, take book tests, do vocab tests, take grammar tests. Reading books is part of these classes to help develop your skills and practice what you've learned.

But if you're an adult reader, I don't think you will get these benefits unless you are intentionally seeking them.

Also, I don't really understand why you would call out "web novels and cliche stuff" as being insufficient texts for any of this kind of learning. I think you can do the same sorts of extrapolation, evaluation and analysis with any text, no matter its intentions, format, or origins. Many people think sci-fi, fantasy, and genre fiction generally are not substantial enough to hold up to this type of reading either, and I think that's also misguided.

TLDR: You can "benefit" from reading any books, but I don't think it's something that just happens passively from the simple act of reading.

I think that the broad opinion is that he is not a bad author. That doesn't mean you have to enjoy his work. Additionally, unless you're reading in the original Russian, you are reading a translation, which means you are also dealing with someone else's particular style and approach to writing and translating as well. If you're determined to read his work, you might try a different translator.

It sounds like your teacher isn't necessarily wrong, just that they might kind of suck.

Brands/trademarks are used in fiction all the time. This would almost certainly be fine under fair use, unless the author was trying to slyly publish the rules of the game themselves.

This is still an arbitrary goal, and if there were a prize attached, then you can bet I'm lying if it looks like I'd otherwise come up short lol.

I don't really worry about this. How you track something on some list has no bearing on anything at all. If I ever talk about a book I didn't finish with someone (i.e. find myself in a situation where the proportion of the book I did read might be relevant), then I have no shame admitting that I didn't finish it, and will explain why I didn't.