As a Russian, I can confirm that you have conveyed the essence correctly.
I would also add that an important specificity of expansionism, which Russian liberals actually had, was quite spontaneous and not very structured. That is, yes, they had the logic of 19th century imperialism: Russia must get the Bosphorus Strait in order to sell grain to the foreign market more effectively (No kidding - Milyukov said this at one of the Duma sessions). But it was during the First World War that the liberals went to the right on this issue. Before that, for example, in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, they promoted "defeatism", only in a liberal legend.
What is the idea: After the victory over Napoleon, reaction and strict conservatism set in in Russia, after the defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-1856, Tsar Alexander II began the Great (liberal) reforms. As a result, for the sake of reforms, liberals must desire defeat in the war. However, suddenly, this turned out to be extremely unpopular among the army and many patriotically minded strata of the population. And already during the years of the First World War, the tactics of "expansion and war" were extremely important in order to secure the support of conservative officers and generals. In fact, the generals agreed to hand over power to the provisional government because the liberals convinced them that in this way they would be able to continue the imperial war more effectively and better! Milyukov spoke about this in his famous 1916 speech "Stupidity or Treason" (Глупость или измена). In it, he referred to the statement of one loyal tsarist general: "I may be a fool, but I am not a traitor." And Milyukov spoke of "traitors or idiots" in the tsar's inner circle, who were hindering the country and victory in the war. Thanks to this, by the beginning of the February Revolution, literally only one general in all of Russia supported the Tsar. All the rest were ready to hand over power to the liberals.
In general, In that way Kadets attracted the right-wing electorate (the Black Hundreds became somehow irrelevant after the disappearance of the tsar) and people from the Military Command. As one Russian proverb says: "If you can't beat them, lead them".