Personally I (critically) support Russia, plain and simple. Others have gone into the details anyone with sense understands, so I won’t expand on them (other than noting my opinion is Russia was not belligerent, and has not been imperialist since the fall of the Tsars, nor colonialist in any sense of the word remotely comparable to that of the Zionist entity or Anglo settler-regimes).

Russia has its problems, and Putin is still a lib (albeit one who is, perhaps, on a path to something somewhat resembling recovery, minus the social conservatism which while unjustified is a pretty common reaction across the global south to western pinkwashed imperialism).

But I see supporting Russia in its resistance against imperialism- against its ethnic kin being genocided (the only reason there’s any debate to be had over it is due to Russian support preventing the worst of it, though they have still been subject, undeniably, of attempts at cultural genocide, countless war crimes, and what can only be described as pogroms), and it itself carved up and returned to the days of shock therapy, I see supporting Russia’s struggle against the west as such as merely a matter of basic decency.

After all, wouldn’t we support Iran, Yemen, or Afghanistan in their similar struggles? Or even India, flawed and debatably descending into fascism as it is? Looking back in hindsight also, it would only be natural to support the Ethiopians (even if it was the monarchy) in their struggle against the Italians, or the human-sacrificing Aztecs and Maya in their struggle against the Spanish, or the Qing in their struggles against the various western and Japanese imperialists, or even the Japanese in their initial struggles to resist and throw off the yoke of unequal treaties (before they joined the ranks of the imperialists themselves).

Anti-imperialism is simply a matter of basic decency, and recognizing that Russia’s struggle in this case is anti-imperialist in every sense of the word is a matter of common sense (sadly not common enough).