I think that the Russian perception is that the West managed a coup d’etat with the fall of the Soviet Union, when NATO expanded far Eastward, incorporating former Warsaw Pact members, in exactly the sort of thing that we didn’t attempt during the height of the Cold War. To their eyes, this nullified their “sphere of influence.” The Warsaw Pact was an extended border zone that protected them from invasion that was bought with many lives during the Great Patriotic War.