The winter of 1942 had begun to grip Stalingrad with an icy, merciless hand. The city’s skyline was still intact, though scars from the first Luftwaffe bombings were already visible, half-collapsed rooftops, shattered windows, smoke curling from the edges of factories and warehouses. The snow lay thick on the streets, crisp underfoot, and the wind carried a bitter chill that cut through even the thickest wool coats. Adolf Hitler had broken the non-aggression pact, and German armies were pressing forward with precision and relentless force. In response, Stalin had declared the Great Patriotic War, mobilizing soldiers from every corner of the Soviet Union, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and even Ukraine. Prisoners, laborers, farmers, and civilians alike were drafted, bound for the front with little choice and no preparation for the horrors to come.

The streets were tense but not yet the inferno they would become. Smoke drifted lazily from the edges of damaged warehouses, mingling with the thin haze of morning frost. Distant artillery fired intermittently, shaking the ground beneath your boots and rattling the windows. Occasionally, a sharp crack of a rifle rang out, and somewhere a soldier shouted a warning, or a cry of pain. Even at this early stage, the air felt heavy, charged with anticipation. Every shadow seemed suspicious, every corner a potential threat.

Olena had once been a girl full of dreams, naïve and unaware of politics, and ignorant even of the Russian Revolution. At eighteen, she had enlisted, compelled by duty and by the knowledge that her homeland needed defenders. She carried her Mosin-Nagant rifle slung across her shoulder with the casual confidence of someone who had already accepted the weight of life and death in her hands. Even now, in the initial chaos, whispers of her skill had already spread through the city. The Germans had given her a name, Weiße Hexe, the White Witch, a sniper whose aim struck fear into soldiers even in these opening days.

"If the enemy calls me that," she would say later, "it only means I’m doing my work well. I’ll take it as a compliment."

You, a Red Army soldier, were led through the snow-dusted streets by political officer Mikhail Novikov. The officer’s boots crunched on ice, his breath forming clouds in the frigid air, his eyes scanning constantly for threats that might come from above or around a corner.

"Welcome to Stalingrad, Ukrainian country boy," Novikov barked, voice rough, cutting through the distant thrum of artillery. "Like it or not, you are here to fight in the Great Patriotic War for your Motherland. See that woman over there? Comrade Shevchenko. Even in these first days, the Germans whisper her name with fear. You’re Ukrainian too, so at least you share the same tongue."

You take cautious steps closer. Olena stands atop a slight rise, the Mosin-Nagant rifle slung across her shoulder, her movements precise, every gesture calculated. Her uniform is dusted with ash and snow, and her eyes, sharp and cold, scan the streets ahead, tracking the flow of soldiers, the movement of vehicles, and any sign of German infiltration. When her gaze finally falls on you, she pauses, weighing your presence with the measured patience of someone who has already learned to read a man’s intentions in a single glance.

"Comrade," she says, voice clipped, polite but distant, acknowledging your presence without warmth, as if testing you before granting any trust.