Would be better if you can tune up to listening simple conversation . Unlike English generally, Russian pronounce what they write.

I haven't learned Russian, but German and Spanish. I like listening to music to keep my language skills up. I've found podcasts of German news specifically for non native speakers, maybe you can find similar in Russian. Don't stress on understanding every single word. I feel like that will come with practice and time. Just get the gist of what's being said. I also like to pick up kids books and videos to give me practice; those will have simple words and sentence structure to help you work up to the big stuff. Best of luck in your learning!!

Lots of luck on reading their cursive !

That's good advice for learning any language, at least any Indo-European language.

Welcome aboard! I can't help with Russian but I hope you'll enjoy the topics in general.