*Originally published in 2020. Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber, or make a donation, to support our work.

Among the Western critics of the West who frequently appear in and get quoted by the Kremlin-sponsored media, the left-wing thinker Noam Chomsky clearly stands out. An internationally acclaimed MIT professor, the winner of the 2005 Prospect/Foreign Policy Top 100 Public Intellectuals poll, a pundit whose foreign policy views are discussed in high-level academic IR journals, Chomsky is head and shoulders above the numerous extreme, marginal, ill-reputed activists who RT and Sputnik International present as ‘experts,’ – be it the editor of the German neo-Nazi Zuerst magazine Manuel Ochsenreiter or the infamous conspiracy theorists William Engdahl and Jeffrey Steinberg. Yet, the overwhelming majority of Chomsky’s comments, which appear in Kremlin-backed media, predominantly concern the US and its allies rather than Russia. Their topics embrace the typical issues which the left regularly criticizes as imperialist and inhumane: US military strategy and immigration policies, the Iraqi war, Turkey’s treatment of the Kurds, Israeli policies in Palestine etc. What, however, remains interesting—and infrequently discussed—is Chomsky’s view of the Putin regime itself.

In the beginning of Putin’s rule, Chomsky’s statements about Russia were mostly critical. At least partially, this seems to have been inertial and influenced by the Russian government’s market reforms of the 1990s, of which Chomsky had utterly disapproved. In his opinion, those ‘neoliberal’ ‘US-backed’ reforms killed ‘millions of people’ throughout the post-Soviet space with ‘the mortality rate being akin to the results of Stalin’s purges’ (my translation). Yet more notably, his critical attitude was caused by Russia’s support of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan, which Chomsky used to attribute to the Kremlin’s own then-ongoing war in Chechnya:

Russia is happily joining the international coalition because it is delighted to have U.S. support for the horrendous atrocities it is carrying out in its war against Chechnya. It describes that as an anti-terrorist war. In fact it is a murderous terrorist war itself. They’d love to have the United States support it.

Russia is happily joining the international coalition because it is delighted to have U.S. support for the horrendous atrocities it is carrying out in its war against Chechnya. It describes that as an anti-terrorist war. In fact it is a murderous terrorist war itself. They’d love to have the United States support it.

From 2004 onward, following Putin’s disagreement with the Iraq campaign, Chomsky started demonstrating more sympathy to Moscow, considering Russia’s then-continuing increase of military exercises and military expenditures as somewhat a reasonable ‘reaction to the Bush administration’s militancy and aggressiveness.’ One of his speeches of that period still contains a mention of ‘the collapse of the Russian economy under the market fanaticism’ which, in his view, had engendered the deterioration of Russian nuclear weapons. Yet, given the context, that remark reads as an expression of sorrow rather than a critical note. Incidentally, Chomsky’s stance on the Chechen war also altered towards a more sympathetic one as the US bogged down more and more in Iraq:

Let’s take the invasion of Iraq. Compare it to, say, Putin’s invasion of Chechnya. There are a lot of differences, but let’s compare it. The Russians invaded Chechnya, destroyed Grozny, carried out massacres, terror. They pacified it. C.J. Chivers of the New York Times was there a couple months ago to report that Grozny is now a booming city, there is building all over, everybody has electricity run by Chechens, you don’t see Russian soldiers around. Do we praise Putin for his achievement? No. In fact, we condemn him for it. I suppose that if Petraeus could achieve even a fraction of what Putin achieved in Chechnya, he would be crowned king.

Let’s take the invasion of Iraq. Compare it to, say, Putin’s invasion of Chechnya. There are a lot of differences, but let’s compare it. The Russians invaded Chechnya, destroyed Grozny, carried out massacres, terror. They pacified it. C.J. Chivers of the New York Times was there a couple months ago to report that Grozny is now a booming city, there is building all over, everybody has electricity run by Chechens, you don’t see Russian soldiers around. Do we praise Putin for his achievement? No. In fact, we condemn him for it. I suppose that if Petraeus could achieve even a fraction of what Putin achieved in Chechnya, he would be crowned king.

Notably, in this interview, Chomsky makes no allusion to numerous human rights abuses in Chechnya, references to which abound in Chivers’ article he cites.

International Crises Involving Russia

Since 2008, Chomsky have been mentioning Russia primarily in relation to the international crises, in which Putin’s actions garnered worldwide media attention and were slammed by the West: the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, the 2014 Ukrainian conflict and the 2016 meddling in the US presidential elections. What is conspicuously similar in his comments on these events is a scarcity of remarks on the Russian actions as such. Chomsky seems much more interested in citing the critical statements of mainstream Western pundits and politicians and then refuting them, often ironically or sarcastically, on the grounds that the US commits much worse ‘crimes.’

Thus, in his 2008 article on the Georgian conflict, he referred, inter alia, to ‘a US-backed invasion’ of Israel into Lebanon in 1982 ‘that left some 15-20,000 dead’ and ‘[t]he US-backed Krajina expulsion’ which, to his mind, was ‘possibly the worst case of ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II.’ In Chomsky’s view, Moscow’s primary weakness was that ‘Russia ha[d] “not yet learned how to play the media game,”’ as a result of which ‘[t]he Russian propaganda system made the mistake of presenting evidence, which was easily refuted.’

Similarly, Chomsky’s discussions of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict are invariably accompanied with mentions of US treatment of Cuba—specifically, the arguably unlawful retention of Guantanamo Bay—and the assertion that ‘the U.S. carried out the worst crime of the century in the invasion of Iraq, much worse than anything Russia has done.’ Commenting on US condemnations of Russian aggressiveness vis-à-vis its neighbors, he sarcastically notes: ‘American red lines, in short, are firmly placed at Russia’s borders. Therefore Russian ambitions “in its own neighborhood” violate world order and create crises.’

Likewise, Chomsky accuses US media and politicians of allegedly overreacting to the problem of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, calling the issue itself ‘almost a joke.’ He largely refrains from touching upon the Russian actions themselves, regarding their possible effect as........

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