Russia's expansive borders have long required military protection.
It's true that I'd rather leave Eastern European military history to others - like Christopher Eger over at Military History. However, with centuries of conflict in several regions of Eastern Europe, as well as the importance of the military to Russian life during the 1700's and 1800's, examining wars, battles, military strategies, and even the life of individual soldiers becomes necessary.
Christopher Eger's article about the Imperial Russian Army of 1914 brings Russian military history as closer to the present than anything I've explored thus far. However, for an unusual look into a solder's life during the Napoleanic Wars, Nadezhda Durova is a god place to start.
Moving into Kievan Rus, the Cossacks of Ukraine had a society founded on military service that was either used or abused by the most powerful ruling forces depending upon the current balance of power in the Northern Central European region of the day.
