The other Ukraine crisis

Yovanovitch was the child of immigrants who had fled the Soviets and the Nazis

LESSONS FROM THE EDGE: A Memoir

Author: Marie Yovanovitch

Publisher: Mariner Books

Price: $30

Pages: 394

When Marie Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from her post as the United States ambassador to Ukraine, the timing felt surreal.

It was April 24, 2019, and she had been hosting an event at her residence in Kyiv in honor of Kateryna Handziuk, a human-rights activist who had died a prolonged, agonizing death after two men attacked her with a litre of sulphuric acid. Throughout the evening, one of Yovanovitch’s assistants kept fielding increasingly insistent calls from Washington. Yovanovitch was ordered to return to the US “immediately,” though at the time