It's not just what the neighbours have. It's what Russia is and has.

Do they have a leader who is disconnected from regular life, poses in absurd settings and gets his information from intelligence agencies? Check.

Do they have a political system that has an internally dysfunctional economy and that needs external enemies to keep people from looking at what happens domestically? Check.

Do they repress internal opposition? Check.

Do they despise democracy? Check.

Do they have a media that is spreading propaganda about neighbours and is controlled by the government? Check.

Do they think in terms of "spheres of influence"? Check.

There are enough parallels to Stalin's USSR to make neighbours worried.

Problem with your argument is, the last thing Russia wants is more sanctions, precisely because of it's currently collapsing economy.

People are not happy and it is 2017, exactly a century since the Great October Revolution of 1917. This severely limits them in search of external enemies.

I'm not that worried about 2017, but where Russia is heading in the medium term. But even this year, they seem to be willing to continue to wage war in Ukraine, and with Belarus in turmoil, they may feel they have to send in some tanks to defend the friendly Lukashenko regime.

Lukashenko regime is much more stable because their police state is much stronger, they have literal KGB and people get visits from it for doing counter-regime posts on the internet much more often than in Russia.

Ukrainian regime actually does not want the war to end. The oligarchs there are very much OK with plundering the country while playing the external enemy card. If war stopped the population would turn their attention inward and they have nothing to show for their time in power.