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It's not only propaganda, centuries of Russian geopolitics have been based on controlling a large enough area of the Northern European Steppe such that the avenues for largescale movement of armies into their territory is constrained by mountain ranges, rivers, etc. Basically, they want to limit the routes of tanks into Russia to topographical bottlenecks that they can easily plug. It sounds daft and may well be daft, but it's not entirely uninformed by history. When you understand that this is a key part of the Russian perspective, you see why NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact countries is interpreted as aggression - the available routes for forces to enter Russia have become thousands of kilometers wide, Belarus is at risk of becoming an indefensible salient, etc. I'm not saying this is a correct or helpful way to view the world, because overall we will not progress by treating the planet like a giant game of Risk. However it does render some of the batshit comprehensible.
Imagine how much of this shit could be avoided if people didn't get so excited about Clausewitz.
GeneralStrike-
There's a chapter on that in Prisoners of Geography (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Geography)
The whole thing relies on the Russian populace believing that they have anything we want on their land and that the west hasn't learned that land invasions of Russia are stupid.
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Interesting!
So with this logic, they won't be happy until they border Germany, Austria and Italy / Slovenia?
ffm
kboy
I think the challenge there is convincing the majority of propaganda-drenched Russians that we (the west) do not pose an existential threat to Russia. It's so obvious to us, but so many of them are utterly brainwashed.