finding an Italian who speaks French with an accent is easier than finding a German who speaks Russian badly
This is almost certainly the case. France and Italy have lots of cultural exchange, French is often taught in Italian schools and Italians who learn fluent French (but naturally maintain their Italian accent) aren't unicorns.
Now, Germans speaking Russian is also a bit of a special case due to the GDR having been a thing. Russian was mandatory in school so anyone who completed schooling in GDR would be able to at least speak some Russian. Though as far as I know, most GDR citizens wouldn't actually interact with Russian culture or native Russian speakers much, so unless the person was particularly dedicated to language study or was in a position to liaise with Soviets, the typical German from GDR would remain at a very basic level of Russian. It doesn't help that Soviet-style language education was formal and not conversational. You'd study a lot of grammar but there was very little attention paid to letting the students become conversational.