If their communists are anything like the swedish ones they are just "tankies". They'll love russia and china with the reasoning that they are "not usa" and therefore automatically good. This has been a huge issue for the european "far"-left for ages.
Most of what you listed is just attributably to being at war. Elections are impossible to hold during war and the crimea-thing is just posturing at this point which mean very little.
I agree that it had changed to the better in the last 15 years or so. It's still an issue elsewhere though.