Vladimir Putin stated that he would consider Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov's proposal to return Volgograd to its historical name, Stalingrad.

"We need to think about it. Local residents decide, but overall, we need to keep everything related to the Great Patriotic War and Stalin's role in that victory in mind and try to depoliticize it," Putin said at a meeting with Duma faction leaders.

The president also emphasized the need to remember the Stalin-era repressions while simultaneously recognizing Stalin's role in the Soviet people's victory in the war. In April of this year, Putin already discussed the possibility of renaming Volgograd, at which time the local airport was also named "Stalingrad."

Recently, a ceremony was held in Kaspiysk, Dagestan, on the grounds of the Dagdizel Plant JSC, to name a factory square after Joseph Stalin and unveil a memorial plaque in his honor.

As a reminder, in the 1940s, Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Bashkirs, Koreans, Kalmyks, Germans, Ingrian Finns, and other peoples of the USSR were deported by Stalin's orders. In 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted a law on the rehabilitation of repressed peoples. In 2024, residents of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic and Ingushetia asked the authorities not to glorify those responsible for Stalin's deportations. They are alarmed by the growing number of busts of Stalin and monuments in his honor. Currently, there are over 110 of them in the Russian Federation.