Hey everybody. Welcome to the Muckrake podcast. I'm Jared Yates Sexton. Nick Halseman, my loyal co-host is out today, so we're going to spend a little bit of quality time together, you and me.

It has been a rough few days.

Watching the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been an exercise in frustration and anger.

And it's really been surreal as much as it's been predictable unfortunately

before we get going just to go ahead and start on a different kind of note before we get

into the nuts and bolts of

what exactly is happening right now and where everything is leading, which is, of course,

going to be the discussion of the day. I want to start back in the 19th century,

the middle of the 19th century, actually, back the 19th century actually, back in 1853.

And I want to start by talking a little bit about Russian history, particularly the Crimean War.

And the Crimean War was an incident that involved Russia, the other belligerents included the

Ottoman Empire and France.

And a part of this entire war and situation was Nicholas I, a first, a czar who made a mistake.

And by mistake, I mean that he believed his own propaganda.

He believed his own garbage, so to speak. And, you know, Russia had lived for many

years on this reputation of being a nearly invulnerable, invincible fighting force.

Well, let's just say that Russia got served in the Crimean War.

And what became obvious over the three years that this war raged

was that the perception that Russia was this elite

unstoppable giant came crashing down. Now, Nicholas I didn't survive the Crimean War. He died shortly

before it ended. But what happened in the wake of that loss

profoundly changed Russia for forever. What occurred was a shattering of these illusions and these myths that had held Russia together.

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