The hotly anticipated debut from an award-winning journalist reveals the hidden story of the US–Russia proxy war in Ukraine.In this bombshell investigation, years in the making, Aaron Maté exposes Washington’s professed support for Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy as a sham.Building on the rigorous, fearless reporting that has established him as a leading independent journalist, Maté irrefutably documents how the US and its NATO allies have meddled in Ukraine with the real aim of weakening and destabilizing Russia.In pursuit of this aggressive geopolitical design, successive US administrations exploited Ukraine’s internal divisions and sabotaged every chance for compromise while relentlessly backing Russia into a corner. Gambling with the global economy and risking nuclear war, US planners then provoked and prolonged an illegal Russian invasion that has had catastrophic consequences—for the Ukrainian people above all.Washington’s cynical foreign policy did not just detonate peace in Europe but also deranged politics at home. Controversies around Russia and Ukraine played a pivotal role in three consecutive US presidential campaigns, driving the national hysteria known as “Russiagate” as well as the first impeachment of Donald Trump.With Trump's re-election pledge to broker peace still elusive, Maté presents a groundbreaking account of how the Russia–Ukraine conflict came to be, and how a brutal proxy war with existential stakes for humanity can finally be resolved.