Eh...it's a start, but it's not particularly impressive. Ethnic nationalism is a threat to the multi-ethnic Russian state, so of course someone whose primary interest is in preserving that state would adopt this view. Not to mention the fact that fighting literal Nazis for three years kind of pushes you in this direction regardless whether you wanted it or not. So it's not that he is any less reactionary than he has always been, it's that the circumstances in which he finds himself leave him no other choice. It would be actually based if he restored the name of Stalingrad. Sure, that would also just be symbolic, but it would be a much clearer signal that the Russian state, even if still bourgeois for the time being, is looking seriously to its anti-Nazi roots.