I say "explicitly", but you could go back to the Russian communist revolution of 1917, or to Mackinder's Heartland Theory 1904, or to The Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople 1378, or indeed to waves of migrations East to West into Europe of the varied ethnic nomadic groups who have at times inhabited the steppes of Central Asia, Mongolia and the Slavs of what is currently Russia and Ukraine.
History would also help understand Russia's particular sensitivity to its security, after all it has been invaded over 50 times including Napoleon and Hitler twice by Sweden and even Canada!
They also say that "geography is destiny" and if you look at the world's most vulnerable frontier in Central Europe (if you follow Mackinder) you will see that there are nine gaps through which invaders have passed and this would lead to an understanding of why Russia might want to protect these gaps in some way or another, given the history above.
https://zeihan.com/russias-twilight-war/
Under Putin, Russia has sought a peaceful resolution of this conflict, but the provocations finally became too much of an existential threat and Russia intervened to protect its own on 24 February 2022. So a defensive war that any Russian leader would have undertaken - imagine if the same thing happened to America, how it would respond? America has its Monroe Doctrine 1823.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, author of the Monroe Doctrine, photo.
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