“There are precedents for elections for more than two terms, including in the United States,” said Putin Tuesday in an address to the Russian legislature. “And why? Look: the Great Depression. Huge economic problems, unemployment and poverty in the U.S. at that time, and later on, World War II. When a country is going through such upheavals and such difficulties — in our case, we have not yet overcome all the problems since the USSR. This is also clear — stability may be more important and must be given priority.”

Putin made those comments after his legislative allies unveiled a plan to scrap the Russian Constitution’s stipulation that a president shall serve no more than two consecutive terms, which would force him to leave office in 2024. The fourth-term president spent four years as prime minister after two previous terms as president.

“It will basically solidify his power, and he will be a new Stalin,” Alisa Muzergues, a foreign policy analyst at GLOBSEC in Slovakia, told the Washington Examiner.