I assure you it is not. North Korea is definitely totalitarian but neither Russia nor China is. They're on their way to be, but aren't. Especially Russia was a very long way from being totalitarian until, as you said, the invasion of Ukraine.

I'm sorry, it was not meant to be condescending. I just wanted to point out that you held two different standards between different authoritarian regimes and that you might want to figure out why to come to a better conclusion, my bad.