William Burns, called the “secret diplomatic weapon” of the United States by The Atlantic magazine, served in the US State Department under five presidents and ten secretaries of state. During his long career, Burns was involved in many significant events of recent years: Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1999, discussions of NATO expansion, the nuclear deal with Iran. In the book, the author reveals previously unknown historical details and cites recently declassified cables and memoranda that provide a rare insight into how diplomatic work is actually conducted - it is not always only through official channels, through ambassadors and summits. Since the late 1980s. William Burns worked actively in the Russian direction, and in 2005–2008. was the US Ambassador to the Russian Federation, his opinion on Russian politics and the situation in the country can provide a lot of valuable information about why Russian-American relations were built in one way or another and why they ultimately reached a dead end.