We have only found out few years ago, that the official doctrine of the Soviets was to nuke my country(Poland) to hell to make it impossible for any forces from the West to move using the shortest path to Russia.
Which is the 'buffer zone' doctrine taken to extremes:
Twenty million Russians died during the Second World War, so Stalin said he wanted a buffer zone of friendly states around Russia to make sure that Russia could never be invaded again.
And, of course, pre-Soviet Russia had been invaded multiple times, often by people who did a lot of damage before they realized they'd forgotten to pack for winter. It's part of having large land borders.
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Which is the 'buffer zone' doctrine taken to extremes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/ir2/so...
And, of course, pre-Soviet Russia had been invaded multiple times, often by people who did a lot of damage before they realized they'd forgotten to pack for winter. It's part of having large land borders.