The bitter army truth: war is not only valor, courage and bravery. This is blood, pain, dirt, bitterness from the loss of fighting friends. The main character of the novel, Major Boris Kopytov, had a chance to drink this bitter cup of war in full. Through the eyes of a forty-year-old officer, we see the most brutal and dramatic episodes of the Chechen war, described vividly and truthfully, without censorship or embellishment. And in the center of this bloody whirlwind, ordinary Russian soldiers, sons of a great country, forgotten and betrayed by this great country, perform their military duty...