I do love that they all claim to hate Putin and the Russian state but only accept sources that paint it in a good light. The AP is apparently biased to them but substacks and Sputnik News are all legit.
It's about understanding the bias; if a US news source admits to something that reflects negatively on the US, we can assume it's at least that bad. Same with a Russian source about Russia.
When an American source runs a story that makes Russia look bad, it's not very credible. Same with Russian sources on America.
In both cases, the actual narrative the article uses its facts to paint should typically be disregarded; the atomic unit of propaganda being emphasis and all.
Most communists aren't going to be too critical of Russia in a discussion with western liberals about Russia's issues because those liberals only understand those criticisms as "russia bad, therefore imperialism good". Same with discussing LGBT+ rights in Palestine or Iran without a bunch of context.
Generalize much? No, most of the liberal leaning folk in the discussions did not view imperialism as good and were happy just as happy to be critical of US and EU imperialism as much as they were of Russia's and China's.
I should get around to reading it one of these days. What did you find objectionable? Just skimming it seems like he's mostly going though historical documents and people that contributed to Stalin's reputation in the west.
It's hard to pin down; I think it was a kind of overarching effort at both-sidesism. To be fair, I didn't finish it, so maybe he tied it all together in the end.