What side of distorted reality are they going for here? It's become harder to tell. You'd think anti-Russian, right? Except Republicans are weirdly pro Putin because their orange clown has a hardon for dicktators.
Basically modern-day Russia still uses Stalinist newspeak, and tankies take it in good faith. In Stalinist newspeak, "imperialism" meant "opposition of the Soviet empire".
Another thing is, tankies also think the USA is the only obstacle in a global communist revolution, and that social autocracies like Russia and China are not going hinder any attempt at it. China is now also exploiting the global south, and I cannot convince tankies that the Hungaran Fudan university isn't being gifted for free by the Chinese, but is on a loan that Hungarian taxpayers have to pay back.