The relays of the Tor network are not operated by the Tor Project itself but rather by a global community of volunteers, including some volunteers running nodes in Russia (you can check the metrics on Tor Metrics). Although operating Tor nodes or other censorship circumvention technology is not legally forbidden in Russia, there are multiple attempts from the Russian authorities (such as Roskomnadzor) to block the Tor Project main website and the Tor network.
But, regarding your question about trust and potential malicious relays, it’s important to note that the design of Tor makes it harder for a single node to compromise, intercept or monitor users’ data, information, or activities. Tor provides strong protections against such risks (you can learn more here and here).
In addition to the Tor design, the Tor Network Health and Community teams are currently working to develop technical tools and building a healthy Tor relay operator community to combat and defend the Tor network against bad relays and malicious activity that could harm Tor users.
Earlier this year, we launched a call for proposals for improving the health of the Tor relay operators community and the Tor network. You can find the details of this call here: [tor-relays] Open call for proposals for improving the health of the Tor relay operator community and the Tor network. And the received proposals can be accessed on the Tor Project GitLab ticket. Over the next few months, we will evaluate all the proposals, formulate new ones (for example), approve a few and then follow up with their implementation.
If you have new ideas to improve the relay operator community, we encourage you to read this metaproposal that explain the process for submitting a proposal.