You're absolutely right. You're talking about Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. With the exception of Finland, all of them are former members of the Bloc. They have fears. They have challenges, but also their fears are grossly exaggerated.
They are exaggerated. If you ask them what the security challenges are for their country, they will all answer that the biggest challenge is Russia. That is the common answer. But they have different challenges, and the animosity towards Russia is rooted in something else.
The animosity towards Russia is rooted not in Russia itself. It's rooted in at least four reasons for why they feel vulnerable. They feel vulnerable and they would like to have the EU, and in particular NATO, be present there to help them. To me, they are displacing a lot of their fears, because the challenges are in their domestic policies.
First of all, in all of those countries there has been significant social disappointment in the last 20 years with regard to how the transition has been handled. This disappointment provides support for xenophobia, populism, and political cynicism and to a certain extent anti-Russian views.
Second is distrust of the system. Many people in those countries don't trust the system to deliver what it is promising. Instead of dealing with this, they replace this challenge with the Russian threat.
Third is fear of unpredictability. All those countries that you mentioned, except maybe Finland, are facing a lot of economic unpredictability and political unpredictability.