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Tankies ignoring the agency of other countries so they can blame anything and everything on the US is just a repackaged form of American exceptionalism. They don't believe Russians or Ukrainians are actually people with agency beyond what the US "makes" them do.
What's hilarious about this is that the Tankies are kind of right, that Russia invading Ukraine is at least partially the US' fault. Of course, this is more of a "A broken clock is right twice per day" kind of thing. The US promised Ukraine that it would defend them from Russian aggression in order to get them to sign the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in 1994, which got them to destroy their nuclear stockpile. Until that point, Ukraine actually had the world's 3rd largest stockpile of nuclear weapons due to their Soviet heritage. Then, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, and the US did nothing. So Russia felt confident in invading once again in February of 2022. If the US had stuck to their word in the Budapest Memorandum, Russia would not have attempted to invade them again. But, alas, the US was too concerned with Russia's nuclear stockpile to do anything other than send Ukraine MREs back in 2014. So, here we are.
Personally I feel the US supplying Ukraine weapons fulfills the Budapest Memorandum. I feel we had an obligation to supply F-16s and Abrams earlier to guarantee security of their land.
I mean, better late than never. Still, I would have loved to see us doing what we're currently doing back in 2014. If we'd done that, Russia would probably not have invaded a second time.
Edit: Alternatively, we could have not induced Ukraine to destroy its nuclear stockpile, in which case Russia would never have invaded them in the first place. Of course, I'm torn on this one, as more nuclear weapons = more chance for the total annhiliation of all humanity. So, I'd prefer they remove their nukes, and we defend them as promised.
The United States consistently backed Putin, and then the US didn't really anything when Russia invaded another former soviet republic as well in 2008.
Based and true
In the very beginning of this war, I actually convinced an aged marxist acquaintance of mine to overcome is knee-jerk pro-Russia reaction exactly by pointing out that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was wrong for the same reasons as the US invasion of Iraq was wrong and thus if one was trully a person on Principles, one would judge the actions of Russia now just like the actions of the US were judged back then.
It helps that, as I don't do mindless tribalism, I feel not compulsion whatsoever to judge some nation more leniently than other, and could just point out the question of principle (the strong attacking the weak to take their stuff using made up self-serving excuses) with no hypocrisy as I've been pretty consistent in judging actions by their own merits and demerits independently of who is doing the deed.
Anyways, the point being that IMHO the lefties who remainin tankies by now are the ones either in a thick closed bubble of ideas and who thus never get things presented to them like this by other lefties or the ones who are little more than ideological parrots with a below average intelligence.
Why would a true Marxist support Russia in the first place?
Because community matters to many people more than ideological consistency, and some far-left groups have made a community culture that involves knee-jerk opposition to 'Western' polities in all circumstances. "US bad, therefore, Russia good." Or rather, "Critical support for Putin's genocides." See: Hexbear, Lemmygrad
The guy was a leftwinger during his young years when Portugal was under the yolk of a Fascist Dictatorship, so his relationship with Marxism and Communism was first of the heart and then of the mind.
Of course the Russia as he was taught to believe it was when he was a young revolutionary (the Beacon of Hope for leftwingers who were under the yolk of Fascism, not the Stalinist shithole), occupies a warm place in his hearth and when the bond is emotional it's normal for it to not simply flip On and Off depending on who governs that country.
Mind you, this is a guy who didn't join the Portuguese Communist Party (which was definitelly a tool of the Soviet Union) because he thought it was too top-down authoritarian and instead joined a different, smaller, party that wanted Communism but without the authoritarianism, so he definitelly was and is more than an unthinking tribalist parrot, which is probably why he could be convinced by simply reducing the subject to a question of principle.
I think it's a solid D grade. They recognize the US has some responsibility given its foreign policy, but in doing so they fail to properly demonstrate Putin's Russia is an aggressor state that invaded a sovereign nation, albeit former Soviet state(s). Like a 20% answer. Super fail.
So I blame that freebie starter example boosting up that averaged grade. Blatant US imperialism helps give Russian aggression a pass.