In August of 1944

August 1944, Belarus. The Red Army is preparing a major offensive. Behind the lines a radio is transmitting to the Germans. Counter-intelligence assigns three men: Alyokhin, Tamantsev and Blinov. They have three days. Searching the woods, checking papers, talking to soldiers carrying false identities. The men are armed, but their real work is talking: working out where a sentence holds and where it does not. In the end all of it comes together in one forest clearing. Mikhail Ptashuk directs the Russian and Belarusian co-production; a hundred and nine minutes, adapted from Vladimir Bogomolov's novel, with Yevgeny Mironov as Alyokhin. The book sold in the millions in the Soviet Union. Ptashuk was killed in a road accident shortly after the film was released.