Putin is a Communist. Be very careful as he’s playing both sides.
No.... he most assuredly is not. Communism in Russia is in gadfly status like the David Duke types here. He has openly warned America about not following the path into madness that his nation did in the 1920a.
It’s idiotic to pretend he is a communist.
The only truly communist state left is North Korea.
If I had to rank nations by level of communism in their government I would start with NK. Then several orders of magnitude from that the PRC. It’s really no longer a communist state, it allows private property & private business concerns all under a heavy authoritarian thumb, but still, they are allowed. Actually, the PRC is really a nazi state. It genuflects to socialism but it has growing influential racial ideology. You should read some of the speeches by their military & party hacks. They could have been written by the most virulent antisemitic. Just substitute Han for Aryan.
Again moving several orders of magnitude away from China even more so from North Korea is Russia. Russia is not a communist state; not the USSR at all. If it’s anything it’s a return to old Imperial Russia without the glitz. It allows private property & businesses all under a authoritarian thumb like China. It’s an authoritarian state like in the days of the Czars but with strong kleptocratic elements. Putin wants his legacy to be the man who restored the imperial borders. Also motivated by the the Orthodox mystical notion of Moscow being the third Rome restoring Ukraine to its Slavic family. That’s the total motivation for his Ukraine adventure. That doesn’t make Russia our friend or necessarily our enemy. It’s really more of a European problem then our problem. It’s almost a return to the pre-WWI days. Anyway we don’t need to look for enemies particularly with our current utterly clueless incompetent leadership.
Our problem is our borders & China!