Thank you for not strawmanning me and actually walking through your experiences with others who are "anti-tankie" rather than assuming the worst of me.
I legitimately don't have time to respond to absolutely all of this in huge detail, so assume that if I didn't respond to a specific point I just didn't have much to say about it.
It forces the unfortunate position of having to be wary due to consequences and not principle.
I do generally agree with this in principle. The governmental structure of Iran, for example, makes a lot of sense if your explicit goal is to be as coup-proof as possible. This is very much a double-edged sword: a country built on legitimate paranoia often sees any protest as foreign interference, regardless of the reality.
Kittenrulz and most "tankies" do not say that it is good and just, though I will admit there are a minority that take Russia's side
Maybe I'm just taking crazy pills here, but most of the opinions on the war over seen here can be boiled down to "Evil Ukrainian Nazis bad, Russia good". That is legitimately what I see during the rare moments I look over here.
full embrace of overt Nazism within sectors of the Ukraine government and armed forces
It can't be "some sectors" and a "full embrace" at the same time, can it? There were some well known units that were very explicitly neonazi, but at no point did they have any control over the civilian government or military high command.
Though that was a convenient talking point for Russian officials rather than a real motivation
Thank you for acknowledging that.