In 1988, at a recruitment base in
Krasnoyarsk, young
Soviet Army conscripts say farewell to their families and loved ones before preparing to leave for military duty. Fellow recruits Lyutyi, Chugun, Gioconda, Ryaba, Stas, and Vorobey are assigned to the
345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment for eventual deployment to
Afghanistan. Arriving at their bootcamp in the
Fergana Valley of
Uzbekistan, the recruits meet
Chechen conscript Pinochet and their drill instructor, Senior Warrant Officer Dygalo, a
traumatized Afghanistan veteran. He trains the recruits hard and treats them harshly, during which the recruits are indoctrinated, overcome their differences, and build bonds. The friends celebrate the end of their training with a local prostitute nicknamed "Snow White". Dygalo is heartbroken when his request to deploy with the recruits is refused. The recruits eventually board a transport plane bound for
Bagram airbase. At Bagram, a fellow paratrooper heading home gives Lyutyi a lucky medallion, which he claims kept him safe through several tours. The veteran boards a transport plane that is hit by a missile on take-off, and it crashes, killing everyone on board. Most of the recruits are assigned to the 9th company; Pinochet and Ryaba are assigned to the 4th company, separating them from their friends. The friends meet Warrant Officer "Khokhol" Pogrebnyak, Sergeant "Afanasiy" Afanasiev, and medic Sergeant "Kurbashi" Kurbanhaliev, who all served with Dygalo before he was medically evacuated. The veterans gradually teach the recruits about the realities of the war. The company, led by Captain "Kagraman" Bystrov, leaves the base to deliver supplies to an isolated Soviet Army outpost. They encounter a group of
Mujahideen led by Akhmed, who engages the outpost in a short skirmish. The next day, Vorobey shoots and kills Akhmed after discovering him by accident. The company is deployed as part of
Operation Magistral and establish an outpost on a nameless hill, designated as
Hill 3234, to protect passing convoys. Ryaba reunites with the friends as the sole survivor of a Mujahideen ambush, which left him wounded and traumatized. Stas falls asleep on guard duty and is beaten by the veterans as punishment. The next day, Khokhol orders Gioconda to find matches, who fearfully enters an Afghan village alone to trade food for them. A convoy approaches the company's position, but is ambushed by the Mujahideen, inflicting many casualties. During the shootout, Ryaba suffers a mental breakdown and is shot in the head, and Captain Bystrov is also killed. Khokhol leads a platoon to pursue the fighters to a nearby village, where Stas is shot in the back by a village boy and dies. The soviets retaliate with a
BM-21 Grad rocket bombardment that annihilates the entire village. Months later, the 9th company remains deployed on
Hill 3234, seeing little action. Pinochet is reassigned to the company, and the men mourn their lost comrades while celebrating
New Year's Eve. Days later, Gioconda is immediately killed when an army of Mujahideen
attack the hill. Over the course of the battle, many soldiers die on both sides, including Khokhol, Kurbashi, Chugun, Vorobey, and Pinochet. Surrounded and low on ammunition, Lyutyi and Afanasiy lead the remaining men in a final defense, until
Mi-24 helicopter gunships arrive and kill the remaining Afghan fighters. Lyutyi emerges as the sole survivor, but learns from an arriving colonel that the
Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan already began, rendering the battle meaningless. Distraught, Lyutyi tears the lucky medallion from his neck and weeps. On February 9, 1989, Lyutyi is seen on a
BTR-70 convoy departing Afghanistan. In his narration, he tells of the eventual
dissolution of the Soviet Union, Dygalo's eventual death from a
stroke, and the futility of the war itself, but declares that the 9th company earned its own personal victory in the end. ==Cast==