You don’t need to give Russia critical support. Much less the US. It is enough to recognize that Putin’s reaction is what one should expect from a traditional power to the West’s attempt to tighten the siege, as much as the Tsar’s reaction to Austria-Hungary’s attempt to annex Serbia was to be expected.

The most positive thing about Russia is that it represents yet another breach in US global hegemony (although the main one, of course, is China). To maintain the defiance, the Kremlin occasionally supports progressive anti-US regimes in the global South such as Cuba and Venezuela, but Putin and his favorite allies in Europe and North America are downright reactionary. That there is such a division between capitalist forces is something that Marxists can eventually take advantage of, but that in no way means that what today’s Kremlin deserves any support, critical or otherwise.

It is probably more propaganda with historical appeal - making the invasion of Ukraine a replay of the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany - than sincere affiliation to Marxism-Leninism. But it cannot be excluded that some commanders do have sympathies for communism.