Language is, of course, a powerful tool in the mouths and pens of propagandists.
The attempt at polarizing the World into either the political East or West, and the concomitant political terms of the Cold War were often unthinkingly applied as though they were geographic terms, and are continued to be used in this manner today. Relatively few people are aware that the recognized geographical center of Europe is not far from Belarus' northwestern border. Of course, it was of advantage to the Soviet Union to encourage mis-identification of Belarus as part of Russia. The Belarusian language and culture were replaced, often violently, with Russian equivalents. Today's successor state to both Czarist Russia and the USSR, the Russian Federation, continues its aims of politicial, cultural, and territorial domination of Belarus.