I understand the reasoning behind this statement.

But about 145 million people live on the world's largest national territory, with infinite natural resources.

I remember the demoralization in Poland during the Soviet times. We called it the Soviet man mentality. It took about 20 years to overcome that, but only to some degree, as the election last year proved.

After WWII, we changed the mentality of the Germans, and also, to some degree, as the recent elections showed up.

Russia is not different in that aspect. The question is, how can we do it without a full-blown WWIII?