: A commando fighting in Chechnya goes through the fear and cruelty of war, sees the death of friends and unjustified mistakes of command. He miraculously survives the last battle and returns home.

The main character of the novel is Yegor Tashevsky, a special forces soldier fighting in Chechnya. A platoon of special forces from the Russian town of St. Spas arrives on a business trip to Grozny. Special forces eighty people, commander Semenych, platoon platoon ulcer, platoon neck - that's their subordinates name. A platoon passes through a ruined boring city and settles on the outskirts, in a former school, now abandoned and mined.

The commandos turn the school into a fortress and begin to count the days of the trip. At night they carry patrols, they are languidly fired upon. The first days sleepily stretch without incident and serious danger. The guys are having fun, joking with each other, secretly violating the regime, drinking alcohol, and do not stop being afraid. Fear encompasses everyone, some do not hide it, most - it teaches. Fear is determined by the actions and relationships of soldiers.

There is work - cleaning up city facilities. The commandos kill the first eight Chechens and get drunk after the operation. The night shelling of the school does not stop,followed by several more sweeps and raids with casualties among the local population and the destruction of militants. At the airport, Yegor Tashevsky sees the corpses of Russian demobilized soldiers who died due to betrayal and connivance of the command. This sight does not add optimism to his already gloomy mood. He is saved from fear only by the memories of his deceased father and his beloved Dasha.

At the next attack of fighters the first commandos die. Soldiers drink more and more, not hiding fear. Egor, who thinks and philosophizes a lot, comes to the conclusion that they haven’t come to Chechnya in vain, he doesn’t want to fight, he doesn’t feel hatred for the Chechens, and considers some orders of the command stupid. When clearing another village, bandits who want to surrender are again shot. They do not take prisoners in violation of orders. After the battle, having lost several guys killed, the platoon gets drunk and falls into a drunken dream. The drunk guards leave their posts, and Chechen fighters attack the school.

In the last battle, Yegor commands his squad and is terribly afraid, but he tries not to show it. They kill almost the entire platoon, Tashevsky’s friend, Sanya, dies before his eyes. The guys are being shot. They came to the rescue with a battle commander Semenych (he was leaving for the headquarters with a report) on two armored personnel carriers. Cars take the wounded, and the platoon continues to shoot back from the superior militant forces. The fighters behave differently in the last battle: someone is cowardly, most are fighting. Semenych says that the militants attacked the city at the same time from all sides.Russian troops were not ready for the offensive, since the command did not monitor the situation. As a result, there are many dead.

The bombing of the school continues for many hours, and the remaining commandos, by order of Semenych, decide to leave through a ravine filled with mud and water after heavy rains. There’s nothing to shoot, the soldiers jump out of the window, the enemies meet them with fire, they kill many.

Egor survives by diving into a dirty slurry. Together with the fighter Monk, who the hero never liked, they hid in a bush for a long time. As Egor had foreseen, the Monk saves his life. With their bare hands, they kill two Ukrainian mercenaries killing wounded Russian soldiers.

In the morning, having met several more survivors, commandos wander along the road from the destroyed school. They are picked up by Russian formations who came to the rescue. Drunk, silent, devastated, the rescued soldiers return home to Holy Savior.