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THE WAR CAME TO US: Life and Death in Ukraine (Bloomsbury Continuum; July 18, 2023) by Christopher Miller is a gripping insider's account of today's Ukraine, from an American journalist who has covered its struggles and politics-- and embraced its spirit and people - for 13 years. Shock, horror, and outrage. That's how most Americans responded to the breaking news on February 24, 2022, that President Vladimir Putin had launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Sixteen minutes before the first cruise missiles struck the Kramatorsk airbase, just 2,000 feet away from the kitschy hotel where journalists often stayed, Christopher Miller received a text message from Alexander Vindman, retired US Army lieutenant colonel and former director of European Affairs for the National Security Council, "You OK?" A few weeks prior, US intelligence sources had gotten wind of the looming attack from Russia and, in an unusual move, alerted President Volodymyr Zelensky. He, like most Ukrainians, was skeptical. After all, Russia had been battling Ukraine for the past eight years. Yet, Miller had a sinking feeling that a bigger, bloodier conflict was about to erupt. In THE WAR CAME TO US, Miller offers an intimate look at Russia's war on Ukraine through the experiences of everyday Ukrainians-including his colleagues, neighbors, and friends. His Ukrainian immersion story begins in March of 2010, when, at the age of 25, he joins the Peace Corps and gets assigned to work as a teacher in Artemivsk, a struggling industrial city. At first, his neighbors think he's a spy. Gradually, they bring him gifts of pickled vegetables and homemade vareneky, stuffed boiled dumplings. He picks up a bit of surzhyk, the mashup of Russian and Ukrainian languages the locals speak. He teaches students snippets of conversational English and the truth about HIV/AIDS. And he starts hanging out with a group of Ukrainian investigative reporters.