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Yeah, no real disagreements with you there - I'm not suggesting that the Risk-informed, Great Game bullshit is the correct view, but rather that it renders the behaviour of the Russian government a lot more comprehensible. When they 'just seem crazy', that's a disempowering understanding of their actions - since it can't inform a considered response.
GeneralStrike
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.