Fallout Of War: Ukraine: Year One

By: H. Peter Alesso

In the tradition of Herman Wouk's sweeping historical war epics, Fallout of War follows Lieutenant Commander James Fairbanks, a career naval submarine officer assigned as a military attaché to the American embassy in Kyiv in late 2021.

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Book Description

Fairbanks tours the Chernobyl exclusion zone, where he meets Ukrainian special forces conducting training exercises amid the haunting ruins of the 1986 disaster. These encounters with hardened Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom fought in the Donbas since 2014, give Fairbanks his first understanding of Ukrainian determination and the existential nature of their struggle. Through a series of diplomatic functions and intelligence briefings, he develops relationships with key Ukrainian officials and eventually meets President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose evolution from entertainer to wartime leader forms one of the novel's central character studies.

When American intelligence detects massive Russian troop concentrations along Ukraine's borders in January 2022, Washington selects Fairbanks to deliver a personal message to Vladimir Putin, hoping that a military officer's assessment might carry weight with the former KGB operative. In a tense Moscow meeting, Putin not only receives Washington’s warning but, in a calculated display of strength, invites Fairbanks to inspect Russian forces massing in Belarus along the Ukrainian border. What Fairbanks witnesses during this extraordinary access shocks him. He recognizes the scale and organization of forces preparing not for exercises but for invasion, and his detailed report to Washington becomes a prescient but controversial document that divides American policymakers between those advocating preemptive support for Ukraine and those counseling restraint to avoid provoking Moscow.

Lucy Fairbanks, meanwhile, has established herself in Kyiv's expatriate community, forming friendships with Ukrainian families and other diplomatics. Her perspective provides the novel's intimate domestic counterpoint to James's military observations. As February 2022 approaches, Lucy's growing anxiety mirrors the city's increasing tension, even as many Ukrainians struggle to believe that full-scale war is actually coming.

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