How to learn Russian on your own

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this but I don't have anywhere else to ask this. I want to learn Russian on my own, so I can learn some phrases and whatnot to my friend from Ukraine. Where can I find a free guide online to learn this?<br><br>And a second question, is Russian hard to learn for English speakers? I don't want to learn Russian to go to college or be completely fluent but I mostly want to know how to pronounce words and learn phrases that my friend can understand in Russian. I'm guessing Russian is a hard language because it's a Slavic language. However, most languages are hard to learn if it's your first time learning a new one. I've been learning Spanish on my own for the past 5 years and I'm progressing albeit slow.