This mentality is an product of the concept of total war, born of the French Revolution. Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn writes in [Leftism]
"[Limited professional- and mercenary-fought cabinet wars] came to an end with the French Revolution. And since all able-bodied men had to serve, whether they had a natural talent and enthusiasm for war or not, they and their families had to be propagandized and indoctrinated. Now nation was pitted against nation, not merely government against government. This new concept of total war was the natural result of the two totalitarian trends toward democracy and toward identitarian nationalism." [391]
OK. Seems like angels dancing on the head of a pin to me. I haven't personally run into anyone "conflat[ing] a people (e.g. Russians) with their tenuously-linked government (Putin's regime)"