Way to downplay the self determination of smaller countries! Ukraine allies with the US for the same reason Vietnam often sides with the US over China: the empire next door is a bigger problem than the empire on the other side of the planet. The US is the lesser evil in those situations, especially in Ukraine's case.

The alternative is being an actual puppet to an empire that sees you as nothing but a buffer and a breadbasket. Being under the thumb of a reformed empire that inflicted famine and genocide on you and other neighbors. The ethnic Russian makeup of post Soviet countries isn't a mistake, but an example of deliberate imperialism by that Russian empire.

In terms of this disrespect, Ukraine got of easy compared to countries like Kazakhstan. I don't care how much you complain about landowners in Ukraine, I dare you to defend the population control and environmental destruction there as anything less than imperialist cruelty.

The Soviet Union was a red-washed Russian empire, not some model system that was much different than the liberty-clad American empire. It was not made of equal states, but a dominant power squeezing the rest. Nationalistic bullshit is what the selfish turn to when capitalism runs its course, and that's what this tankie bullshit is: counter-revolutionary garbage where nothing fundamentally changes. The answers will never be that easy.