On October 2, 2026, Okko released Soldiers of Half-Life. The Nuclear Secret of the USSR, a documentary series based on declassified materials. Its three 48-minute episodes cover the 1954 Totskoye exercises — the only large-scale military exercises in Soviet history to use a nuclear weapon. The series is produced by Magnum.999, Matterica and General Creation.
What the series is about
1954, the Orenburg region. Some 45,000 servicemen gathered at the Totskoye range. Under the command of Marshal of Victory Georgy Zhukov, an atomic bomb of about 40 kilotons was detonated. The exercises were a symmetrical response to US military policy: the Pentagon had drawn up a plan to strike Soviet cities with 300 nuclear bombs in the event of war.
According to the official reports, the soldiers and officers carried out their task, there were no casualties among the military or civilians, and the Soviet armed forces were fully prepared for any scenario. The series takes up the questions those reports left open: what was the true scale of what happened, what really took place at Totskoye, and how did the tests affect the fate of the country and the world.
The experts
To reconstruct events from more than 70 years ago, the filmmakers drew on a range of experts. Featured in the series:
- Nikolai Biryukov — PhD in history, senior researcher at the 12th Central Research Institute of the Russian Ministry of Defence, military historian specialising in the history of the nuclear weapons complex, retired colonel;
- Vyacheslav Moiseev — journalist, writer and publisher, author of the book Rehearsal for the Apocalypse. Totskoye — 1954;
- Alexander Shcherbakov — senior lecturer at the Department of Theoretical and Experimental Physics of Nuclear Reactors, MEPhI National Research Nuclear University;
- Andrey Ozharovsky — engineer-physicist, expert with the Radioactive Waste Safety programme;
- Alexander Ivanchenko — MD, professor, Russian State Prize laureate in science and technology, retired colonel of the medical service.
A double premiere
The series is released alongside Okko's historical drama Half-Life, directed by Maxim Sveshnikov, written by Oleg Malovichko and starring Anna Mikhalkova. It continues Okko's double-premiere format, in which a documentary and a scripted series come out together and complement each other: the drama tells a fictional story, the documentary examines the real events behind it.
The road to release
Okko unveiled the series' teaser poster on June 19, 2026, at the "Pilot" series festival, in its documentary competition — see our June announcement.
This is not Vladislav Kuznetsov's first project with Okko and Matterica: he previously directed the documentary series Being Gypsy and Obschak, as well as the film Pasha Tekhnik.
Team
Directed by Vladislav Kuznetsov. Written by Arina Makarenko and Vladimir Todorov. Director of photography Mikhail Loshkarev. General producers: Anton Korablyov, Anastasia Evtushenko, Mikhail Borodin. Producers: Anton Korablyov, Anastasia Evtushenko, Mikhail Borodin, Dmitry Pachulia, Sergey Shishkin, Gavriil Gordeev and Vladimir Todorov. A Magnum.999, Matterica and General Creation production.
Coverage
- DOC.ru — project page (in Russian)
- Sobaka.ru — what to watch at home this week (in Russian)
- Championat — release news (in Russian)
- Kinopoisk — series page
Where to watch
Soldiers of Half-Life. The Nuclear Secret of the USSR is streaming on Okko. Trailer and details on the project page.
