History.<p>Russia has no solid geographical border on the western side.<p>Consequently invaders from the West have invaded Russia every century or so over the last five or six (or more) centuries. The Russians have to beat them back every time. They have to always be wary of what the countries to the West are up to, all the time.<p>The Russians generally always have the same policy: they trade space for time. Napoleon got as far as Moscow while Russian forces pulled back. Hitler did too. (OK, he was 10 miles from the Moscow CBD.) He got so annoyed that the Russians wouldn't remain to fight and get destroyed. Even last year in Ukraine, the Ukrainians claimed big victories when they 'pushed back' the Russians. That was no 'victory', it was just SOP for the Russians.<p>Countries in the West had very few casualties from WW2. Less than a million each, overall. Russia had 27 million dead overall, both civilians and soldiers. The Russians caused 80% of all German casualties, all of the Western campaigns only totted up 20% of German casualties.<p>Consequently, WW2 is still very close to the forefront in most Russians' minds. It's not just that historic item that most people in the West have no knowledge of. Pretty much every Russian family lost someone. <i>They don't want that to happen again.</i><p><i>That</i> is what drives the Russian men to continue to enlist to fight in Ukraine. It's not Ukraine that Russia is fighting in Ukraine, it's NATO that Russia is fighting in Ukraine.<p>Incidentally, the Latvian Novaya Gazeta that this article comes from is not the original Russian Novaya Gazeta and is based in one of the NATO countries. It will be biased against the Russians.