Wonderful academic conversation. However, when all is said and done, Josef Stalin was by far the greatest mass murderer who ever walked on this planet, BY FAR! Even his family could not stand him. They were all destroyed because of his actions, directly and indirectly. Stalin makes Hitler look like a choirboy!  Putin has the same mind. He just does not have the numbers to work with. Given sufficient time, Putin will kill all of Russia and not give it a second thought.