Those are all Stalin’s public statements. It looks good to downplay your cult. But he still undoubtedly had one.
Lennan for example seemed to pretty strongly oppose a cult of personality forming around him. But Stallin didn’t, just some humble public statements.
I guess they’re relaxing the policy, since they’ve hinted previously that they viewed attacks on Russian territory to be a threat to the existence of Russia and would use nukes in response. But they didn’t.