A 'Hitlerjugend' kind of story, set in the Soviet Union during the Second World War, based on a fictitious story from the eponymous book by Vladimir Kunin. The Red Army has a gang of juveniles for a clandestine operation against the Nazis. The boys are trained by a dangerous crime lord at a top secret boot camp. They are doomed to die in the mission, or after it, just to keep it a secret.