It's crazy. I know a Russian guy who is exactly like this; I debate with him all the time. Almost every night. About the war. Bluntly invested in winning, regardless of what the system looks like; even admitting that it's a terrible system; using weak arguments for why people need structural dominance, while simultaneously arguing in favor of "the people" - (and using a historical American failings as a way to draw false equivalences). It's all chess when you grow up somewhere with nothing to gain. Or another way of saying it is, it's possible for a polity to never improve itself but give the illusion of relative improvement, if it can poison its enemies down to its own level or lower. This, unfortunately, is the same mentality we're dealing with now.

[edit] Even so, he still betrays that curious overconfidence in the power of central planning...