Maybe we need to be more Stalinesque?
Certainly a lot less Bidenesque. Stalin made some very serious miscalculations by not believing his agents that an attack was coming. He was trying to do everything to prevent an incident. I believe he was afraid that the Nazis and west would both attack him together. Anyway with literally their bodies the Russians stopped the Nazis just before Moscow. Surrender was not an option since the ruling communists knew they would be the first to be killed. Gave them a good incentive not to give up. Belarus where the worst fighting took place may have lost a 1/3 of the population.
The Russians have been fighting the Germans since at least the 13th century. The Russians are Orthodox and the German Teutonic Knights were a Catholic order with a Papal mandate to launch a crusade against the baltic pagans and they had no problems attacking other christians while they were at it.
Russian depiction of German Crusaders in a propaganda movie Alexander Nevski