For a purported anti-racist, Chomsky seems to be denying us, Slavs and Balts east of the former Iron Curtain, any independent agency. We aren't some dumb American puppets. We have our own countries and history.

And in that history, we used to be under the Russian yoke - someone for a relatively short time (Czechia), someone for centuries (Estonia), and the vast majority of the formerly yoked nations used their first opportunity to bail and swear never again. Which means never again, even at a cost of an all-out defensive war. Fuck Russia and their backward, cynical, violent empire. They view us as escaped satellites that need to be put back into their rightful orbit and we view them, well, as zombified orcs that bring torment, death and general civilizational regression on the tips of their bayonets.

Even countries that escaped that mournful fate, like the Finns, armed themselves to the teeth just to dissuade Russia from ever trying to conquer them again. The upkeep of the Finnish army is a nontrivial part of that small nation's finances, but everyone knows that it is money wisely spent.

As for the Ukrainians, they don't have any reasons to love Russia historically, and much less so after the campaign of terror that Putin unleashed on them. Even cities that were majority Russian-speaking, such as Kharkiv and Odessa, suffered from extensive Russian bombing.

IDK what happens in Chomsky's head that he can see photos from places like Bucha and not understand that the hatred of the Ukrainians against the aggressors is genuine. Perhaps he is deluded enough to consider them fake. As former subjects of Moscow, nope, this is the Russian world in action as we and our ancestors have experienced it.