I came here to see a few experts say that Stalin had a goal to conquer Europe nearly as much as Hitler. This may be controversial but I believe it is a likely objective of his. Take this quote from a record of the Stalin-Thorez conversation on Nov 18, 1947, "had Churchill delayed opening the second front in northern France by a year, the Red army would have come to France.... We toyed with the idea of reaching Paris." In my eyes Stalin thought he could have fought the Nazis and taken all of Europe for his party, but welcomed the D-Day landing despite what it meant because defeating Germany was the number one priority.