Putin shocked and surprised pretty much everyone in Russia by launching a regime change war on Ukraine. Two days before that, he went on Russian TV and gave a menacing grievance speech — in which he attacked America but also went after the Bolsheviks, blaming the disintegration of the Soviet Union and today’s crisis in Ukraine squarely on Lenin.

Evgenia and I discuss his speech and talk about how it fits into the mushy national identity that Putin’s elite has been trying to cobble together for Russia.

—Yasha Levine

This is a preview of a full episode that is only available to subscribers. To hear the rest, sign up and listen here.

Catch up on some old eps:

* China's Olympic Menace and Immigrant Deprogramming with Carl Zha

* “Navalny,” the documentary

* The Ayahuasca Special

* Christmas Special: Ghost of Epstein

* St. Paul of Amsterdam

* Immigrant Deprogramming with Nika Dubrovsky

* Imaginary Futures with Richard Barbrook

* Behind the Silicon Curtain

* The Soviet Jew & good riddance Los Feliz

* “I didn’t want to live in a simulacrum of American life in the ruins of the Soviet Union”

* Watching American movies in the USSR ft. Boris Levine

* Anti-Soviet identities in the USSR

* The End

* Breeders

* Adam Curtis, get out of my head

* Navalny, the Kremlin, and the curse of neoliberalism

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe