The Russians need to move West, as Siberia in the East is slowly becoming mostly populated by Chinese. Besides, when the Russian Czars looked to Europe, wasn’t that supposed to be a “good” thing?
Many people think that what drove Soviet Imperialism was the communist ideology, it was not. Russians want to occupy other people. The end. Russian monarchs, communist first secretaries, whatever Putin system is, it doesn’t matter. They all got big dreams. In 19th century they were as far as Poland. In 20th, East Germany and everything south to Adriatic.
You know how there’s American Dream? Russian Dream is to have Russia from Kamchatka to Lisbon. It’s not to create success, wealth or improve quality of life, there’s just this pointless aggression to conquer somebody because they’re there. Very primitive, Darwinian, barbarian-like thinking is behind that. The excuse given - it’s done to create buffer zone against possible aggressions from others, is just that, an excuse. Heck, everybody would like a buffer zone, I would like to have a buffer zone.