"For weeks before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, John J. Sullivan, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow, was warning that it would happen. When troops finally crossed the border, he was woken in the middle of the night with a prearranged code. ... Sullivan leads readers into the offices of the U.S. embassy and the halls of the Kremlin during this climactic period--among the most dangerous since World War II. He shows how the Putin regime repeatedly lied about its intentions to invade Ukraine in the weeks leading up to the attack, while also devoting huge numbers of personnel and vast resources to undermining the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia. And he explains how, when Putin ultimately gave the order to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he proved that Russia was not just at war with its neighbor: it was also at war, in a very real sense, with the United States, and with everything that it represents"--

John J. Sullivan is an American attorney and government official whose career spans four decades in the public and private sectors. He has served five presidents in prominent diplomatic and legal positions, including as U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation under Presidents Joe Biden (January 2021 to October 2022) and Donald Trump (December 2019 to January 2021). Before his post in Moscow, he served for almost three years as the U.S. deputy secretary of state. He is currently a distinguished fellow at Georgetown and Columbia Universities, a partner in Mayer Brown LLP, and a member of the congressionally-chartered, bipartisan Commission on Reform and Modernization of the Department of State. He splits his time between the Washington, DC area and Connecticut.