More generally, I’d say that group based thinking should not be enforced by the government. A society based around “the group is most important” can enforce itself just fine based on societal norms and their consequences (who people are willing to interact with and hire for work). What a government stepping in and saying what sort of talk is acceptable does is freeze the society to what the government enforces. Instead people should be able to try and change society norms if they believe there’s a better way, rather than government forcing it to stagnate.
Obviously there's a balance to be struck. 100% individualism is just anarchy. But history has proven that allowing people an above-historical-average level of individual freedom leads to a more productive and secure society.
That said it's debatable whether strong-man dictatorships are "collectivist" at all. They're extremely individualist, but only for a select group of elite individuals. Otherwise they'd try and make decisions to benefit the group, and as Putin has shown in Ukraine, they often don't. Never mind the strategic decision to invade which might have had some initial merit, you would expect a truly collectivist nation to prioritize competence in its military. As it stands a full NATO conventional intervention could end the war in a month, the only thing keeping Russia intact is brutal suppression of internal dissent and a nuclear arsenal that, if it's been maintained as badly as its regular military, might very well explode in its silos on launch.
That doesn't sound like a very effective collective to me. Maybe it would have been effective 300 years ago because that level of organization is all most nations had, but that's the point. It's an obsolete model.
There are conventions. That countries agree to uphold. In this case not upholding them is the "wrong" way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_th...
There is the tyranny of the group and the tyranny of the individual - we need to reject both.
On which way is right - I would say one should be able to choose the group and retreat from it if so desired.
Putin's regime is not communism.
To take a step back and think about things (not that I'm suggesting what I think)... in most places for most of history it's been about the group. The collective. Being heavily individualized is a modern and western thing.
So, why is one way right and another way wrong?
Note, I do not agree with what's going on with Russia. I'm simply bringing up the higher level question that's often assumed but rarely looked at.