The new novel by Alexei Nikitin, "From the Face of Fire," centers on the story of a Ukrainian-Jewish family from Kyiv. Ilya Goldinov is a boxer, a Dynamo club member, and the heavyweight champion of Ukraine. In the early months of the war, Ilya commands a platoon in a partisan regiment and later fights as part of a Red Army infantry division. He is captured but finds a way to escape.

In February 1942, he is sent to Kyiv on a mission for the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR. His wife, Feliksa, is evacuated to the Urals, but by November 1943, she returns to the city with the advancing troops to uncover her husband's fate.

The novel draws on materials from various archives, including documents from the First Directorate of the NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR from the SBU archive, declassified in 2011.