You could replace USSR/Russia with USA/NATO and Ukrainians with Russians in your second paragraph and everything would match. You can’t in good faith tell me Russia is brainwashing it’s population but that the West isn’t commanding every major media platform to parrot it’s geopolitical narratives. You can’t tell me that “Greatness” is what matters most to Russia and pretend that the US/EU isn’t drowning in rabid chauvinistic sentiment against it’s opponents out of fear of losing it’s greatness to a country like China.
The Baltic states are like scabs praising a company because of their boss immediately made them employee of the month after they got hired and made them feel special.