I think a material difference between Iraq (v2 anyway) and Ukraine is that they can keep doing the “well Russia was the aggressor” thing indefinitely even if the reality is more complicated.
also yes obviously some libs are still stubborn about Iraq, the worst ones, but for the most part its generally agreed that the Iraq War was a bad thing.
If I were Russian I would have volunteered to fight with the DPR in 2014 and would be posting Z and helping destroy AmeriKKKa
revolutionary defeatism is for use against imperialists, not anti-imperialists combatting the world hegemonic empire. If I was in Syria I would be fighting for Assad. If I were in Iraq during US invasion I would be fighting for Saddam. If I were in Libya, I would fight for Gaddafi. The right to resist imperialism supersedes all else, it’s the primary contradiction.
Most MLs I have spoken to think revolutionairy defeatism absolutely applies to Russia and praise activists fighting the draft there.
Russia may be a lesser evil on the geopolitical stage but treating them as purely an antiimperialist force worth uncritically supporting to the point where you actually take up arms for their revanchist activities (and yes, part of the motive for Russia’s actions is revanchism, NATO encirclement and Donbass also factor in, but denying the revanchism is foolish).