The knee jerk reaction of my older comrades in this little Left-wing party in my country (Portugal) I was a member of was, when Russia invaded Ukraine, to support Russia (though I personally brought at least one around by pointing out the parallels between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and America's invasion of Iraq), and the local Communist Party in this country still supports Russia even thought Russia is pretty much a Fascist country now.

Plenty of people learned to love Russia back when they were young (in my country, back then under a Fascist dictatorship, Communists were the main revolutionary fighters) and even though Russia changed a lot since, those old emotional bonds are still there.

Mind you, in my experience even though their heart is still pulled towards it, at least the more thinking amongst such people can be intellectually brought around to look at modern day Russia with a critical eye.

So, yeah, they intellectually don't think Russia is Communist, but they still react the same towards it as back when it was Communist, by uncritically believing what comes from there and supporting it by default.