Now, there I'm Chuck Todd.

This is the Chuck Todd cast.

Usually at this time of year, we are all in on the midterms when it comes to what I'm

focused on, how I get up every morning, and what I'm thinking about, whether it's for

me to press the report of the podcast here.

But we're going to take a brief detour to talk about the developments in Russia, because

it does feel like we are basically, we've just experienced, I would argue, maybe the two

most important weeks in the war.

But we're going to get to that in a few minutes.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin made that surprise speech last week and we team

mobilized additional troops.

We've seen a mass exodus of young men from Russia, sham referendums across the eastern

part of Ukraine, a suspicious series of explosions that have disabled two natural gas pipelines,

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2.

So what's going on in Russia?

Not everybody has a good idea of what is, but one person that might have an idea is the

former ambassador to Russia, Mike McFall, who joins us, I assume, from Palo Alto, correct?

Yep.

Palo Alto today.

No, wonderful.

And so I want to start our conversation, because it does feel as if Putin has had to make

a series of bad calls that all sort of, and I'm curious if this, if it all sort of began

...