While I have no direct information on Mandela..... public rhetoric/news...... I take it he was a communist who would kill anyone for the cause.
It is an obvious argument for fascists or authoritarians in the crush for being the top dog in the world to try to diss partisans for their competition. Putin has put on a Russian identity rather than being a Brit puppet, for sure. So all the high-brow Brit authoritarians wanna put him down. Pots and kettles, I say. Black is black. Authoritarian governance is authoritarian governance.
I think a person like Assange, who will out crap on any side, is doing a public service. If he didn't publish Putin crap, he still gave us stuff we need to try to take back our own government.
Some people think free speech is chaos, a Russian plot or a Chinese plot or a globalist plot, whatever. What we need is free speech and the right to think for ourselves.
Pretty sure "management" doesn't want free speech anywhere.