Check out Reagan’s and Thatcher’s explicit reasoning for deploying intermediate range nuclear Pershing IIs in Germany in the early 80s. What we see today, what you describe, is the mirror image of the situation then. The Russians are doing precisely what Reagan did with the nukes going into Belarus and along the Finnish frontier. I have no idea why you would think WWIII would be fought as a kinder, gentler conventional type WWII Eastern Front meat grinder conflict. Those Russian missiles are a trip wire that starts the total nuclear exchange. This is not Russian tactics, it is Reagan’s idea, stolen by the Russians. Up until one year ago it universally agreed that anyone claiming WWIII with the Russians was winnable by anyone was a reckless fool. The media masters then began flippantly speculating about how we could “win” WWIII and their warmongering stooges began championing the madness.
Except for the obvious difference, that Reagan's ultimate goal was to free the countries enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, and Putin now is trying to re-enslave them.