I always love how quickly the liberal mask falls off. The west is all about freedom, democracy, and free speech, until it's something the lib mainstream doesn't like to hear. It's quite telling you're not asking why Assange and Snowden are being prosecuted for revealing what they revealed, but you're upset that this isn't happening more.

Turns out that those who label Communists as tankies and authoritarians are well-aware of the necessity to suppress divergent viewpoints. Freedom of expression is limited to ideas that align with the liberal narrative; when faced with opinions they deem detrimental, liberals demand cancellation, imprisonment, or even death for the proponents.

The real disagreement liberals have with the Communists is over what set of ideas has merit. When liberals screech about authoritarianism what they're really saying is that it's their ideology that's being suppressed.

This is in part one of those situations where your argument amounts to question-begging. The reason being, just as a test: What if Russia was on the correct side of the war, would this still be coherent? Is there any contradiction in these Russian publicity outlets publishing correct information that is then opportunistically used by the rival party to the current US administration to discredit the latter?

If you already assume slava ukra'ini and that reactionaries have some magical inability to say things that are true, you can make a coherent story, but I would argue that the antithesis is at least as coherent a story.

I'm sure RT, etc. also publish bullshit that is also used by the right just as readily, but imo the Russian center-right can get by on policy wrt Ukraine by simply reporting facts faithfully, because theirs is a position [shared by much of the Russian left as well] that is only more justified as historical context increases and actors are more closely scrutinized. I was objectively late to the party when, in 2018, I was reading about the CIA backing Azov, but still I saw reality completely recast leading up to the invasion and thereby I had some advantage over the liberals who seem to believe that Ukraine is Palestine despite the fact that it's Ukraine slaughtering ethnic minorities.

It doesn't help that Ukraine can't seem to find pictures of its military that don't include fascist symbols, or that they absolutely wear their banderite bullshit on their sleeve if you actually listen to them speak. You can just report on these things faithfully and make the Ukrainian government and especially its military look monstrous to many viewers.