The USSR ceded their claim to parts of Turkey some 8 years before the missiles were deployed there, yet it kept the 13 rifle, mountain and mechanized divisions in Armenia and Azerbaijan, under the so called Transcaucasian Military District. Similarly the so called Southern Group of Forces was stationed in Hungary just across the Ljubljana Gap from Italy.
It is a bulletproof fact that throughout the Cold War the USSR had an offensive stance in Europe, and conventional NATO forces there only stood some chance in defensive. Eventually the insane military production, sometimes amounting to 25% GDP, including ludicrous quantities of tanks, IFVs and SPGs to support the supposed rush to the English Channel, brought the colossus down.
