Marxist Paul is a maoist. He says China is imperialist. Not saying you shouldnt watch him, he has good videos, but keep that in mind. His takes on China and Russia are garbage "bothsideism" maoism. The fact is Russia is the best ally China has right now. They recently did joint air patrols in the East China Sea to scare Biden and are concluding military cooperation agreements. If you support China you must support Russia too. Doesnt mean you have to like Putin or his internal policies, but you must support him as long as hes allied with China. You cant say "i support Cuba, but not USSR". Nonsense, they were a bloc, you support none or all. Same now with China, Russia, Iran and the smaller allies. Its 1 bloc, they are all in this together, against US imperialism. Simple.

Also DPR and LPR used to be communist led. The early 2014 uprisings were literally led by communists. While they have lost a lot of influence in the government due to the 8 year ukrainian aggression and Putin preferring to prop up liberal allies instead, they nevertheless retain big influence on the movement. I recommend Russel Texas Bentley Telegram Channel (he had a youtube channel but got banned when RT got banned). Hes an american communist who has been fighting in DPR since 2014 in a communist battalion. Ill link it down here. DPR and LPR have suffered insane aggression at the hands of the west. They are antiimperialist, and while not explicitly with a communist government, the movement behind them is a very much progressive popular movement and with big communist influence.

His telegram channel: https://t.me/TXDPR

It's tempting to declare this "imperialist war" or "no support to capitalist Russia" or whatever to maintain ideological purity, but that is just avoidance of problem. This is the problem all ML leaders did faced too, some highlight include: Mao and his concept of just war, Stalin and his famous explanation of what revolutionary and reactionary means in the context of imperialist international politics, Che with realisation that USA is the biggest enemy in the world, and even Lenin, so often quoted in this situation out of context, had no problem in supporting clearly imperialist Japan when the opponent was worse.