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. Fairbanks arrives in Ukraine with his wife, Lucy, a State Department analyst, just as tensions with Russia reach a critical juncture. A thoughtful, disciplined officer known for his strategic acumen and unvarnished assessments, Fairbanks quickly becomes immersed in the complex political and military landscape of Eastern Europe.
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.
Lucy Fairbanks, meanwhile, has established herself in Kyiv's expatriate community, forming friendships with Ukrainian families and other diplomats. 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.
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. Fairbanks arrives in Ukraine with his wife, Lucy, a State Department analyst, just as tensions with Russia reach a critical juncture. A thoughtful, disciplined officer known for his strategic acumen and unvarnished assessments, Fairbanks quickly becomes immersed in the complex political and military landscape of Eastern Europe.
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.
Lucy Fairbanks, meanwhile, has established herself in Kyiv's expatriate community, forming friendships with Ukrainian families and other diplomats. 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.
The Aeroflot flight from Washington descended through low clouds into Boryspil International Airport on a Thursday evening in late September 2021. Lieutenant Commander James Fairbanks pressed his face against the window as the aircraft broke through the overcast, revealing the flat Ukrainian countryside dotted with villages and collective farm buildings in the fading light. Beside him, his wife Lucy reached across the armrest and squeezed his hand.
"Nervous?" she asked.
"Excited," James replied, though the distinction felt academic. At thirty, he had logged thousands of hours submerged beneath the world's oceans, had stood command watch during tense patrols off the coast of Russia, and had earned a reputation as one of the Navy's most promising young officers. Yet the prospect of serving as a naval attaché in a city thousands of miles from any ocean filled him with uncertainty. The submarine service was what he knew, what he understood. Diplomacy was foreign territory.
Lucy, at twenty-nine, seemed to possess none of his apprehension. Her rich golden-brown hair was tied in a ponytail which was askew. Yet, her green eyes held an intense fire, a blazing determination that made her seem fierce yet fragile. She scanned the terminal buildings with unmistakable interest as the aircraft taxied. She had grown up as a Foreign Service brat, moving from post to post with her parents, and had spent two years as a State Department analyst before their marriage. For her, this assignment represented a return to a world she had missed. She spoke fluent Russian and Ukrainian, having studied both languages at Georgetown. James spoke both as well, though his Russian carried the formal precision of classroom instruction rather than native fluency.
The airport was smaller than James had expected, less modern, with signs in both Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Immigration officers stamped their diplomatic passports without comment. In the arrivals hall, a young Marine sergeant from the embassy held a sign reading "FAIRBANKS" and helped them load their luggage into a black Suburban with diplomatic plates.
"Welcome to Kyiv, Commander," the Marine said as they pulled away from the terminal. "Ma'am. The Ambassador sends her apologies for not meeting you personally. There's a situation with the President's office that requires her attention."
"What kind of situation?" James asked.
The Marine glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "Better if she briefs you herself, sir."
They drove north toward the city as dusk deepened into night. The highway was in decent repair, better than James had expected, with occasional new construction and billboards advertising mobile phones and Ukrainian banks. As they approached Kyiv's outskirts, the landscape transformed. Golden domes caught the last light, glowing against the darkening sky. Soviet-era apartment blocks stood beside newly renovated buildings with European-style facades. The Dnipro River, broad and gray, cut through the city's heart.
"It's beautiful," Lucy murmured.
Their apartment was in a restored building near the Pechersk Lavra monastery, a sprawling Orthodox complex that dominated the hillside above the river. The apartment itself was spacious by diplomatic standards, with high ceilings, parquet floors, and windows overlooking a quiet courtyard. Their furniture and personal effects would arrive in containers within the month, but for now they had temporary furnishings and suitcases.
After the Marine departed, James and Lucy stood at the window looking out over the darkened courtyard. Lights glowed in neighboring apartments. Somewhere nearby, music played, something Eastern European that James didn't recognize.
"What do you think?" Lucy asked.
"I think," James said slowly, "that I'm a long way from the ocean."
She laughed and leaned against him. "You'll adapt. You always do."
"Will I? The Navy sent me here because they want officers with broader experience, officers who understand geopolitics and alliance dynamics. But I'm a submariner, Lucy. I know how to hunt Russian boats in the Pacific and maintain reactor plants. I don't know how to navigate embassy cocktail parties and brief ambassadors."
"Then you'll learn," she said simply. "Besides, you're better at this than you think. Remember that briefing you gave the admiral last year on Chinese submarine capabilities? You made complex technical issues comprehensible to non-specialists. That's exactly what you'll do here."
James wasn't convinced, but he appreciated her confidence. They unpacked enough for the night, made a simple dinner from food the embassy had stocked in their refrigerator, and went to bed early, exhausted from travel and time zone changes.
In the morning, Kyiv revealed itself in sunlight. James woke before dawn, still on Washington time, and went for a run along the river embankment. The city was already stirring. Old women swept sidewalks, bakeries opened their doors releasing the smell of fresh bread, and the metro stations swallowed streams of commuters. The golden domes of churches glinted in the rising sun, and across the river, forests blazed with autumn color.
At the embassy, a modern glass and concrete structure in the Shevchenkivskyi district, James reported for his first briefing at eight o'clock. Security Marines checked his credentials, and he was escorted to the Ambassador's office on the third floor. Ambassador Katherine Forrest was a woman in her mid-fifties with silver hair and sharp blue eyes that suggested she missed very little. She rose from behind her desk to shake his hand.
"Commander Fairbanks. Welcome to Kyiv. I apologize for the rushed welcome yesterday. We had an unexpected development with the Ukrainian government."
James fixed his hazel eyes on the ambassador. He stood tall at six foot two, and his athletic build was honed by years of physical training. His brown hair, though slightly tousled, framed his appealing face.
"Development, Maâam?"
"Sit down," she said, gesturing to a chair across from her desk. "Coffee?"
"Please."
She poured two cups from a carafe on a side table and settled back into her chair. "The situation yesterday involved a meeting between President Zelensky and the Russian ambassador. Apparently, Moscow delivered a formal protest about Ukrainian military exercises near the Donbas line of contact. The language was threatening, and Zelensky wanted to brief us immediately."
"How serious?"
"Everything Moscow does these days is serious," Forrest said. "They've been escalating pressure on Ukraine since the 2014 invasion of Crimea and the war in Donbas. This felt like another turn of the screw, but Zelensky is concerned it signals something more. He has good instincts, better than most gave him credit for when he was elected."
James had read the briefing materials on Zelensky during his pre-assignment preparation. A former actor and comedian, elected president in 2019 in a landslide, riding a wave of popular frustration with corruption and the old political elite. Washington had been skeptical initially, wondering if a television personality could lead a nation under siege. But the assessments had shifted. Zelensky had proven tougher and more capable than expected.
"What's your assessment of Russian intentions?" James asked.
Forrest sipped her coffee, considering the question. "Honestly? I think Putin wants to reverse 2014. Not the Crimea annexation, he considers that permanent. But the failure to capture more of eastern Ukraine, the failure to prevent Ukraine from moving closer to the West. He's been building up forces along the border for months. Our intelligence suggests he's probing for weakness, looking for an opportunity."
"An opportunity for what?"
"That's what I need you to help me understand," Forrest said. "Your predecessor was competent but lacked your technical background. You're a submarine officer, you understand Russian military thinking, you've studied their systems and tactics. I need you to assess Ukrainian military capabilities, their readiness, and most importantly, their will to fight if Russia pushes harder."
"You think it could come to that?"
"Commander, I think we need to be prepared for anything. Putin is unpredictable, and he views Ukraine as fundamentally illegitimate, an artificial construct that belongs in Russia's sphere of influence. He's said as much publicly. The question isn't whether he wants to bring Ukraine to heel. The question is whether he thinks he can get away with it."
James spent the rest of that morning in briefings with the embassy's defense attaché office, the CIA station chief, and the political section. Each briefing painted a picture of a nation under constant pressure, struggling to reform its military, fighting a low-intensity war in its east, and trying to maintain its sovereignty against a much larger neighbor. The Ukrainian military had improved significantly since 2014, receiving training and equipment from NATO countries, but it remained overmatched by Russian forces.
At lunch, James met Lucy at Café Barsky, a restaurant near Maidan Square that she had discovered during her morning explorations. The café occupied the ground floor of a renovated nineteenth-century building, with tall windows overlooking the square and exposed brick walls decorated with contemporary Ukrainian art. The lunch crowd was a mixture of business people, students from nearby universities, and what appeared to be government workers from the surrounding ministries.
Lucy had arrived first and secured a table by the window. She had changed from her morning clothes into a charcoal gray suit that struck James as both professional and elegant, her dark hair now swept up in a twist that exposed the graceful line of her neck. A leather portfolio sat on the chair beside her, and she was reviewing documents when he arrived, her reading glasses perched on her nose giving her a studious air that reminded him of when they'd first met at Annapolis years earlier.
She looked up as he approached, her green eyes brightening. "You look exhausted already," she said, kissing his cheek as he sat down.
"Four hours of briefings will do that," James replied. He was still in his service khakis, feeling slightly overdressed among the casually attired Ukrainians around them. His compact frame and military bearing drew a few glances, but most diners paid them no attention. "You look like you've been busy too. What's in the portfolio?"
"My onboarding packet from the Political-Economic Section. I had my first morning at the embassy, officially assigned to Ambassador Forrest's staff as a special advisor on Russian affairs and Eastern European politics." Lucy's voice carried quiet satisfaction. "It's not just translation work or being a trailing spouse this time. They're giving me real analytical responsibilities."
A waiter approached, a young man in his twenties with carefully groomed hair and the earnest manner of someone working his way through university. He greeted them in Ukrainian, then switched smoothly to English.
"Welcome to Café Barsky. Your first time here?"
"First time in Kyiv, actually," Lucy said with a warm smile. "We just arrived last night."
"Ah, welcome to our city! Then you must try the borscht, it is the best in this district. And the varenyky with potato and cheese, very traditional." He handed them menus, his enthusiasm genuine rather than merely professional.
After he departed with their orders, James leaned forward, lowering his voice slightly. "Tell me about this special advisor position. That sounds more senior than what we discussed before we left Washington."
Lucy's expression grew more serious as she set down her water glass. "It is. Apparently, Ambassador Forrest specifically requested me when you were assigned here. She needs someone who can monitor Russian media, analyze political developments in Moscow, and provide real-time assessment of Russian policy toward Ukraine. The embassy's political section is strong on Ukrainian politics but weaker on Russian analysis."
"That's significant responsibility," James said, feeling a mix of pride and concern. "Will you be attending policy meetings?"
"Senior staff meetings twice weekly, plus I'll be writing analysis for the Ambassador's daily briefing book. Forrest made it clear this morning that she considers the Russian dimension to be the critical variable in everything that happens here. She wants someone tracking not just official statements but the mood in Russian media, what the nationalist commentators are saying, which Duma members are pushing for harder lines on Ukraine."
Their borscht arrived, deep purple-red and steaming, served with a dollop of sour cream and dark bread on the side. The waiter lingered just long enough to ensure they had everything they needed, then withdrew with practiced discretion.
James tasted the soup and found it rich and complex, earthy with beets and beef. "How was your first morning? Beyond the job briefing?"
Lucy broke off a piece of bread, her movements deliberate as she gathered her thoughts. "Illuminating. I met our neighbor Iryna on the stairs this morning when I was leaving for the embassy. She's sixty, lived in that building her entire life, survived Soviet times, the Holodomor stories from her parents, Chernobyl, the collapse, the Orange Revolution, Maidan, everything. She helped me with directions to the metro station."
"Friendly?"
"Very, but there was something underneath it. When I mentioned we'd just arrived that my husband was with the embassy, she got this look. Not hostile but knowing. She asked in Ukrainian, 'Do you know what you're getting into here?' I said we were here to help support Ukraine's security. She nodded and said, 'Ukrainians have learned to live with the knife at their throat. We know Russia will never accept our independence. But sometimes I think Americans forget the knife is there until blood starts flowing.'"
James set down his spoon. "That's a grim assessment."
"It's a realistic one," Lucy said. "Then she added something that's been bothering me all morning. She said, 'My grandson is in the army, near Donetsk. He has been there since 2015. Seven years of war that most of the world forgets is still happening. He calls sometimes and tells me what Russian artillery sounds like, how you learn to recognize incoming fire by the pitch. A grandmother should not have to learn such things about her grandson's life.'"
A well-dressed woman at the next table glanced over at them, catching enough of their English conversation to show interest. She was perhaps forty, with striking features and the confident bearing of someone accustomed to professional environments. After a moment's hesitation, she leaned toward their table slightly.
"Excuse me," she said in accented but fluent English, "I apologize for overhearing, but are you with the American embassy?"
Lucy and James exchanged a quick glance before Lucy responded. "Yes, we just arrived. I'm Lucy Fairbanks, and this is my husband, James."
The woman's expression softened. "I am Oksana Kovalenko. I work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the European integration directorate. Your accent, Mrs. Fairbanks, is quite good. You studied in Russia?"
"At Georgetown, in Washington. Russian and Ukrainian language and literature program with one summer in Moscow."
"Ah, a proper academic background." Oksana's smile held both warmth and something more calculating. "You will find Kyiv very different from Moscow. We like to think we are more European here, more open. But of course, you are analyzing us, yes? That is what embassy people do."
James noted the directness without hostility, the way Oksana stated facts rather than accusations. "We're here to understand Ukraine better," he said carefully. "To support your country's sovereignty and security."
"Support is good," Oksana said. "We will need much support when Russia comes. Not if, you understand. When. This is what everyone in my ministry discusses now. Not whether Putin will invade, but when, and how far he will go this time. Crimea was just the beginning. He wants all of us back in the Russian cage."
"Do you think he'll actually launch a full invasion?" Lucy asked, her analytical instincts engaged. "The costs would be enormous for Russia."
Oksana's laugh was bitter. "You think Putin calculates like Western leaders? He does not care about costs measured in money or even in soldiers' lives. He cares about restoring Russian greatness, the empire he thinks was stolen from him. Ukraine's existence as an independent, democratic nation aligned with the West is an insult to his worldview. He will try to erase us."
The waiter returned with their varenyky, the dumplings golden and steaming, filled with potato and cheese and topped with caramelized onions. The interruption gave them a moment to process Oksana's blunt assessment.
"I have made you uncomfortable," Oksana said, not apologetically but as a statement of fact. "This is the Ukrainian condition. We make everyone uncomfortable because we are a problem no one wants to solve. Europeans want our market and our buffer against Russia but not our membership in their clubs. Americans want to contain Russia but not at the cost of real confrontation. And Russia wants us dead or enslaved. So, we must be very clear-eyed about our situation, because no one else will be clear-eyed for us."
Lucy had been listening intently, her training as an analyst evident in the way she absorbed information without reacting.
"I should return to my office," Oksana said, standing and gathering her things. She pulled a business card from her purse and placed it on their table. "If you wish to understand Ukrainian perspective, Mrs. Fairbanks, call me. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs coordinates with your Political-Economic Section regularly, and I suspect we will work together.â
She left with the efficiency of someone perpetually short of time, paying her bill quickly and departing into the midday sun of Maidan Square.
Lucy and James sat in silence for a moment, processing the encounter. Finally, Lucy spoke, her voice thoughtful. "That was either a very fortuitous coincidence or a very deliberate contact."
"You think the Foreign Ministry wanted to message us through her?"
"I think word travels fast in diplomatic circles. We arrived yesterday. By this morning, her ministry knows there's a new naval attaché with submarine experience and a new political advisor who specializes in Russian affairs. Oksana works in European integration, which means she's dealing with Ukraine's NATO and EU aspirations. She has every reason to want American officials to understand Ukrainian determination and needs."
"So, we just got our first intelligence approach," James said.
"Or our first glimpse of genuine Ukrainian desperation," Lucy countered. She picked up Oksana's business card, studying it. "Her brother's name is Dmytro Kovalenko, did you notice? Major Dmytro Kovalenko, special forces. That name came up in my morning briefings as someone highly regarded by Ukrainian military intelligence. If she's his sister, she's well-connected to both civilian and military leadership. This wasn't random, James."
Their waiter returned to clear their plates and offer dessert, which they declined.
After he left, Lucy leaned back in her chair, looking out the window at Maidan Square. The space was peaceful now, filled with people crossing the plaza on their way to work, sitting on benches enjoying the autumn sunshine, going about ordinary lives. The memorials to those killed in 2014 stood along the perimeter like sentinels, photographs of the dead surrounded by flowers that were kept perpetually fresh.
"What are you thinking?" James asked.
"I'm thinking that everyone here lives with an awareness of history and violence that Americans can't really comprehend. That square out there, eight years ago it was a battlefield. People died fighting their own government, fighting for the right to choose a European future over a Russian past. And now they're preparing to fight again, except this time it won't be riot police and snipers. It'll be tanks and artillery and missiles."
Lucy was quiet for a long moment, watching the square.
That afternoon, back at the embassy, James began drafting his initial observations. He wrote about Ukrainian military capabilities, about the improvements since 2014, about the persistent vulnerabilities in air defense and heavy armor. But he also wrote about something harder to quantify: the national will to resist, the determination he'd sensed in conversations with Iryna and Oksana, the understanding that for Ukrainians this was existential rather than geopolitical.
His conclusion was measured but clear: Ukrainian forces remained vulnerable to Russian conventional superiority, but they possessed the morale and determination to resist effectively if provided with adequate support. Any assessment that predicted quick collapse was likely wrong. This would not be 2014 again. Ukraine had changed.
In her office three floors above, Lucy was writing her own assessment, analyzing Russian media coverage and political rhetoric about Ukraine. Her conclusion mirrored James's from a different angle: Russian information operations were preparing domestic opinion for military action. The narrative being constructed was not one of negotiation or compromise but of necessary intervention to protect Russian interests and Russian people. The propaganda machine was not exploring options but justifying decisions already made.
As evening fell over Kyiv, both James and Lucy filed their reports through secure channels. Somewhere in Washington, in classified reading rooms and situation briefings, people would read their assessments and factor them into policy decisions. Whether those decisions would be adequate to the moment neither of them could know.
They met at the apartment as darkness gathered. Lucy had stopped at a market and bought ingredients for dinner, including the dark bread and cheese that Iryna had recommended. As they cooked together in their temporary kitchen, domestic normalcy providing respite from professional anxieties, James found himself thinking about what he had heard that day.
That night, lying in bed listening to Lucy's breathing as she fell asleep beside him, James found himself thinking about submarine operations, about the moment when you dive deep and lose sight of the surface, when the pressure builds around the hull and you trust your equipment and your training to see you through. Ukraine felt like that now, descending into depths that would test every strength and expose every weakness.
The question was whether, when the pressure peaked and crisis came, the hull would hold.
Ukraine: Year One is the first book in the Fallout of War series by H. Peter Alesso. It tells the story of Commander James Fairbanks and his wife who are sent to assess and report on the condition of events in Ukraine in 2021 as they prepare for a Russian invasion. James works alongside the military to cover military preparedness while his wife works with the embassy to work with the expatriate community to prepare.
I was rather intrigued by this book as I didnât know many of the details surrounding the invasion of the Ukraine which also means I canât comment on the factual accuracy of the book. That being said the feel of it certainly seems authentic as it seems to really capture the feeling that would be present in this kind of situation. It also does a really good job portraying how Fairbanks found himself getting caught up in the resistance and his emotional connection to the resistance. This always seemed a tricky thing to get right in literature but from what I am seeing this book does a really good job with it. It doesnât hide the dark side of war when it was necessary to be included and the after effects of being in such a situation. There was very little I would have changed beyond just having some more depth to the story as it seemed way too short to cover all of what it covered. I am giving it four out of five stars.
This book is technically historical fiction even if it covers relatively recent events so it would hold the most appeal for readers who prefer that genre, especially those who prefer military history. It is aimed primarily at adult readers and I would tend to agree with that considering the content. There are scenes of warfare and violence throughout which would probably be unsuitable for younger readers. At best I would suggest nobody younger than about sixteen should read this.