When I first heard, on Wednesday afternoon, that there was going to be a last-minute phone call between the Kremlin and the White House, at Vladimir Putin’s request, I immediately imagined the worst: Putin was calling, I thought, to give Biden a formal heads-up that Russia was going to invade Ukraine after all. The news caught me as I was shopping at Target, and I stopped in my tracks, in the middle of the shampoo aisle, picturing a split screen, with Biden on the phone on one side, and, on the other, Russian troops pouring over the border. I quickly texted some of my sources in the U.S. and in allied governments, and asked: Is this it? A New Year’s invasion?