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Military historians do not like to talk about penal battalions, their mass graves are nameless. Penal battalions were thrown into attacks on the most impregnable sections of the German defense. It was not at all necessary to supply penal battalions with ammunition and provisions, they often obtained food and weapons themselves, in battle. Death surrounded them on all sides: in front, they were mowed down by enemy machine guns, and from behind - by machine guns of the NKVD barrier detachments. The film tells about the tragic fates of penal battalions, whose lives were used to achieve victory in the most difficult period of the Great Patriotic War... War film, drama. Director: Nikolai Dostal (Jr.). Starring: Aleksey Serebryakov, Yury Stepanov, Aleksandr Bashirov and others.