Let me remind you that Russian is a more phonetic language than English.
When learning English as a foreign language, students can’t avoid using the International Phonetic Alphabet because the difference between spelling and pronunciation in English can be so large that, as they say, one can read “Manchester” as “Liverpool”. As long as you do it in handwriting, it is efficient. You can even use the letters upper case instead of the lower case at your first steps. First, you should become familiar with Russian block letters and learn to write them. You are not going to participate in a Russian calligraphy contest.
What you need instead is the SOUNDS the letters make. What you DO NOT need to do when starting learning the Russian alphabet
