The referendums where 90% of the people voted yes to leave? They had peace and a chance to leave, emigration, and the fallout of the collapse of the ussr were the reason so many people left, for greener pastures. The USSR didn't save Europe from fascism, they absolutely contributed to the fall of naziism. But the USSR is fascist, by definition. The catastrophe was caused by russia, im not ignoring anything. Ignoring alll of that, russias current expansion has caused more damage to Ukraine, if you cared so much about Ukraines prosperity, you would be vocal about that part. The USSR has always been colonial, and expansionist. They have to keep their sphere of influence via force, and no matter how you want to paint it, crushing people under boots doesn't make them good or right.

Yes they helped the Spanish resistance, and just like any other ideology it was done to secure what they call communism, not because fascism is bad, but because they wanted to have influence (like every other nation) they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Other nations turned a blind eye to their population going to fight the fascists too, you can't ignore that point.

And onto ww2 yes russia bore the brunt of population loss due to the nazis, but that's because of russias meat grinder approach. The war was won with British intelligence, American steel and russian blood. The USSR would have collapsed if it weren't for support from the west. There was no benevolence from the ussr in its actions, no was there truly in the west.

The argument of invading to save is just as flimsy as "saving those savages" that happened in North America to the first nations people's. E: or a more accurate example would be the US's invasions of vietnam

The reason people blame China for expanding its sphere of influence is due to the way they are doing it, through exploitative projects in Africa, and re writing maps, ignoring internationally recognized boundaries. Any country that does those things, in that way is bad.