The fighting at Khalkhin Gol, which lasted from spring to autumn 1939, is called a “military conflict” in our country, and in Japan – the “Second Russian-Japanese War”. These were full-scale military operations, in which aviation and tanks were used massively, practically a rehearsal for World War II. At the initial stage of the fighting, the Red Army made many command and organizational errors, which allowed the Japanese troops, who at that moment had rich combat experience, to seize the initiative. However, after Divisional Commander Zhukov arrived at the theater of operations, the situation changed dramatically - a thorough “work on mistakes” was carried out, fresh reserves were brought in. The results of the battle were summed up “hot on the heels” by Konstantin Simonov:

The book is written based on real events. This is the last work of the great master of historical novels Vladimir Pershanin - the writer died in January 2020. He wrote this book for several years, trying to capture the feat of the participants in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, one of whom he portrayed as the main character of the story - yesterday's graduate of the infantry and machine gun school, Lieutenant Vasily Astakhov.