Reddit mentions of A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Vladimir Putin, Revised Edition

A History of Modern Russia by Robert Service is a pretty reasonable text. You stipulated "factual" and I'm not sure exactly what that means in your context, but this book is fairly straight forward and I actually think is best suited as an undergraduate textbook (although it is not strictly speaking a textbook). But it doesn't require much, if any, previous knowledge of the field or historiography, which makes it approachable for people who might be interested in the topic but haven't studied modern Russia much previously.

First I'll note that you still didn't supply a source for your claim. As to your question, though:

There are just literally tens of thousands of books and journal articles and thousands of Russian authors who have been writing about this for decades. It seemed like the tone of your question was accusatory, suggesting that the scholarship on this subject is just a bunch of Americans who never bothered to ask any Russians what was going on. You would have to have little to no contact with the community who studies this stuff to think that. The reason I recommended Natasha's Dance is because it's great for people who are new to the subject and has a very good bibliography for those who are interested in further research. Another good book which focuses more on politics than on culture is Robert Service's A History of Modern Russia

As to your second point, that's a little bit dismaying. It sounds as if you're saying "Okay, I don't have a source, but you only have one so give me more, but even if you have more I doubt they're legitimate because they're probably written by non-Russians and therefore they're biased beyond credibility." It kind of sounds like I'm talking to an ideologue, in other words, and that I don't really have any hope in getting you to consider something contrary to what you're already set upon, but in the hopes that I'm wrong I'll answer your question in good faith. No, I don't think the historicity of the improvement of the Russian standard of living after the fall of the Soviet Union is questioned by any serious historian or political analyst. It is a fact supported by the research of every credible scholar and NGO that I'm aware of.

Finally, to suggest that Russia has accepted (and I'm guessing you put that word in scare quotes to suggest that they were coerced by The West to change their ways -- if so, that's a really problematic thing to say) our values and way of life is not only wrong (Putin is a dictator and the markets are still heavily distorted by the government) but confusingly implies that the two systems are equally worthy of consideration.