On Saturday, June 21, 1941, Sasha Akimov, Gennadiy Garbuk, a 15-year-old musician, and his older brother Andrey Akimov, Aleksandr Saptsov, serve in the 333rd Rifle Regiment of the Red Army at Brest Fortress. Across the fortress, a commissar, Yefim Fomin, Pavel Derevyanko discovers he cannot bring his family to Brest due to a shortage of train tickets. Another officer, Lt. Gavrilov, voiced concerns about the fort’s defenses, despite warnings from NKVD Lt. Vainshtein, Mikhail Pavlik, about an imminent war with Germany. That evening, the fortress loses power due to sabotage by German Brandenburgers.
The next morning, at 3:58, Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union—begins. Brest Fortress is relentlessly bombarded by German artillery and Stuka dive-bombers, while waves of German infantry press the assault. By 6:30, hospital staff and patients are overwhelmed and captured, many are massacred. Fomin takes command of the defenders around the Kholm Gate, while Gavrilov rallies the troops around the Eastern Fort. Elsewhere, NKVD border guards under command of Lieutenant Kizhevatov, Andrey Merzlikin, repel a German sortie into the fortress, and Vainshtein thwarts a German commando attempting to undermine the 132nd NKVD Battalion barracks. As the siege tightens, Sasha finds himself stranded in one of the barracks, fighting to stay alive amid the chaos. In the East Fort, Andrey Akimov is killed while destroying two Panzer IIIs with a 45 mm anti-tank gun, a sacrifice that helps Gavrilov slow the German advance.
By the end of June 22, the Soviet defenders are split into groups: Fomin and his force defend the Kholm Gate, Gavrilov’s men guard the Eastern Redoubt, while Kizhevatov holds the 9th Frontier outpost, aided by civilians, and Vainshtein maintains a stubborn hold on the barracks of the 132nd NKVD Battalion. The next day, fighting continues, and Sasha makes it to the Kholm Gate. An I-16 fighter from the 123rd Fighter Aviation Regiment is shot down over the fortress, its pilot rescued by Fomin’s men. The pilot reveals that the Red Army is retreating toward Minsk, and Fomin realizes that the defenders must break out or die.
On June 24, Sasha leaves the Kholm Gate to warn the other pockets about Fomin’s breakout plan. He discovers the 132nd has been overrun and Vainshtein is dead, but he succeeds in delivering the message to Kizhevatov and Gavrilov. That night, a breakout is attempted by all three pockets but is halted by German forces, resulting in heavy losses. The following morning, Kizhevatov reluctantly orders the surviving civilians—his wife and daughter, and Sasha among them—to evacuate the fortress during a cease-fire.
By June 26, a two-ton bomb devastates the fortress, and the Germans move to extinguish the remaining pockets. The defenders at the Kholm Gate surrender, and Fomin is executed on the spot under the Commissar order, as a Jew, a communist, and a commissar. Gavrilov commands the remaining men to strike out individually. Kizhevatov and his troops regroup in the barracks; Sasha returns to them there. After urging Sasha to take the regimental colors and remember the truth about the defenders, Kizhevatov covers his comrades with a machine gun to enable a last breakout, which ultimately fails and costs Kizhevatov his life as Sasha escapes. Years later, an elderly Sasha visits a Brest Fortress memorial with his grandson to remember the days when life, family, and homeland were all bound up in a single brave stand.
