December 1979. A graduate of the General Staff Academy, Alexey Tyapkin, gets hit on the head with a brick right at the entrance to a restaurant where his classmates were celebrating. He opens his eyes and finds that he is no longer Tyapkin. He is now Private Rinat Ilyasov, a Tatar from Naberezhnye Chelny, a fighter of the 154th special-purpose detachment, the Muslim battalion, under Kabul—three days before the assault on Amin’s palace.
Officer-level knowledge in his head, rank insignia of a private on his shoulders. A foreknowledge of how this war will end—and the complete impossibility of saying so. You can only fight. Honestly, well—alongside the people who turned out to be nearby.