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...The West could be perceived as slow to adopt this lesson, given the number of attempts in the last few centuries. The problem for Russia is that even spectacularly unsuccessful invasions have been extremely damaging and costly to defend. It seems an outmoded way of thinking though, to me - but perhaps this 19th century mindset informs the perspective of the Russian leadership?
GeneralStrike-
Invasions of Russia were not because West wanted to invade East, but because couple of lunatics wanted to control the whole world and Russia was perceived as an obstruction to that. Your theory of West not learning enough from invading Russia could also be reversed back. Russia should really learn from invading other countries. Starting from Korea some 100 years ago, through Afghanistan etc. I have one word for the ^. Paranoia.
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I think it does inform it in the sense of forming part of the Russian national psyche. I would be amazed if any of the leadership seriously thought that they were facing a land invasion and occupation. If nothing else, they must know that the population of western countries would take an incredibly dim view of their politicians flinging hundreds of thousands of their citizens into that meatgrinder.
I think it's pretty clear that the main mindset driving their actions is the desire to re-establish Russia as an empire along its historical lines, which means control or occupation of neighbouring countries. The irony being that if they just chilled the fuck out and acted like a modern trading nation secure within their own borders they'd be much stronger and not subject to the various forms of economic and diplomatic damage that they're currently suffering.
Foreigner65
ffm
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.