The emote problem seems like it'd be really annoying, I've stopped using them when I'm not on hexbear communities (though sometimes I forget what instance I'm on sorry in advance).
As for the "wrong type of leftist" sort of stuff, hexbear tries to be a big tent community for leftists (we've got all sorts over there although it's admittedly heavily leaning towards marxist-leninists) and it tends to be a much more welcoming site outside of those overcrowded threads on active where everyone is arguing.
Hopefully the chaos will die down soon enough.
The popular consensus on Hexbear is anti-NATO, rather than pro-Russia. If this is a sticking point for you, I don't think you will agree much with the average users on geopolitics.
But, as long as you stay out of the news megathread, you likely won't see much discussion of the war on Hexbear.