What counts as "hate speech"?

Yesterday someone at work was talking about recent developments in the Ukraine War. I haven't been following the news, so mostly I just listened while he and our boss discussed things. Anyway, somewhere along the line he began speculating about what might happen in Russia once Vladimir Putin dies. He referenced a couple of events I wasn't familiar with (so I don't remember what they were) and then said, "Do you think they'll learn from such obvious failures? Of course they're Russians, so they might not learn anything."

This man is a left-wing Democrat with impeccable liberal credentials. He would never dream of beginning a disparaging remark by saying, "Of course they're Black, so …" or "Of course they're Jewish, so …" or "Of course they're gay, so …." And if he heard someone else say that, he would immediately mark it down as hate speech. He would immediately condemn that kind of blatant prejudice.

So what is it about Russians, that makes it different this time? Does it somehow not count as hate speech as long as the group you are disparaging are Russians? Or perhaps (to generalize) as long as the group is politically unpopular? But hate speech is almost never deployed against popular groups; so to allow it against unpopular groups is almost the same thing as eliminating the concept as any kind of meaningful distinction.

Am I confused here?