Russia's Ukraine genocidal erasure project is more than 3 centuries old. Russia's own leaders say openly that Russia without empire isn't Russia. Read here:

https://www.justsecurity.org/81789/russias-eliminationist-rhetoric-against-ukraine-a-collection/

The idea that AOC and the Squad are "establishment" is as inaccurate and as fascism-friendly as the German CP in 1932 calling the SPD "social fascists".