A young Vasily Zaitsev is taught how to shoot with a sniper rifle by his grandfather, in the Ural Mountains. The timeline then shifts to 1942, following the invasion of the Soviet Union the year before. Zaitsev is now a soldier in the Red Army and finds himself on the front lines of the Battle of Stalingrad. Forced into a suicidal charge without a rifle, Vasily barely survives the onslaught.