My current opinion:

One doesn’t have to be fully pro-US to recognize that Russia is doing shitty things out of strategical geopolitics that just so happen to be anti-imperialist, and vice versa, one doesn’t have to be pro-Russia to recognize the amount of influence that the US exerts and wants to exert over the entire world. Obviously, every bold move requires certain sacrifices, but this shouldn’t be the cost of economical freedom. What’s the point of hoping for a better economical future, when the country is turned to ruin? It’s not like Russia has come to liberate Ukraine with the promise of building it back better and ensuring human rights; Putin is not Lenin. Not to mention that the crux of the issue seems to be with the Russian military’s command chain (you absolutely do have some abhorrent troop leaders in there).

I do not want to see any country or place ruined over what essentially amounts to a botched anti-imperialist struggle. Russia might be de-facto an anti-imperialist actor, but it does not have anti-imperialist goals. If it did, it would care about human lives and it wouldn’t disperse so much one-sided propaganda. Russia has patriotic (country-oriented) interests, which include nationalism, religion, and patriarchy. These goals serve only its own interests, and other people-groups are paying the price of it. (Although it is not so absolute either; Russia still is a multi-ethnic country, after all.) We must not forget that socialism is primarily an international movement. Socialism for one people-group at the expense of another is no socialism whatsoever. Judging by state TV propaganda, Russia isn’t interested in helping Ukraine, it’s only interested in “reclaiming what was once theirs”, completely disregarding all else. Anti-imperialism in general is too about more than just territorial control.

One top comment here said that Russia does not yet possess the capability to be as ruthless as the US, and that by siding with the less powerful entity, our chances at revolution increase, whereas (implying) that our chances when siding with the US are nil. This attempt to quantize the probability is quite naïve, since it is entirely possible that our chances are zero under both circumstances, perhaps because we lack the power. At the cost of sounding like an anarchist, unless we can create an actual organized mass movement with strong leadership that can strike and overthrow a whole state apparatus, we remain vulnerable, and the only thing we can do in the meantime is to engage in smaller-scale struggles, if not straight up organize.

In this sense, the greatest good we can do is help Ukrainian refugees, aka the people whose material realities were impacted the most by this event. Their suffering does not bring a revolution any closer to existence, it can come with or without thousands of innocents dead or displaced. But other than this, I don’t see much else we can do, aside from giving our opinions. For real, what material impact should our critical support of Russia generate? If it’s blocs we’re talking about, then one can most definitely support China and its allies, including Russia in general, while simultaneously condemning this one specific event. The Soviet bloc was not a monolith either, after all, and it had its good and bad moments throughout the years.

Finally, remember that all of this is just my personal opinion, I do not claim to possess the only correct and true narrative. If I have misunderstood anything or if there’s something you want to add, I am open to criticism.

Edit tl;dr: I support Russia and its people in the long run, but I mostly disagree with this war, and I strongly disagree with how it’s been conducted so far. Russia could have done a better job, but hasn’t done so not by accident, but due to ideology.