The Russians plan was to attack in 1943, after the German and British armies were exhausted in the West.
It’s hard for me to feel much pity for the Russians, after they agreed to carve up Poland with the Nazis, invaded the Baltic countries, and invaded Finland.
Stalin actually expected a repeat of the First World War in which, over several years, the French and Brits would fight Germany to exhaustion, thus making Soviet conquest of Germany a cake-walk.
So Stalin did not expect to ever do any serious fighting against Germany.
Of course no one feels sympathy for Stalin -- at least as murderous as Hitler, but started years earlier.
The Russian people, Ukraines & others under Stalin's boot are a much different story.
Something like 20 million of them died in the war, nearly half of those civilians.
But they kept at least 3/4 of Hitler's troops tied down on the Eastern Front, and killed many times more German soldiers than the US and Brits in the West did.
Without the Russians efforts, many more Americans, Brits and other allies would have died defeating Hitler.