1985. Dmitri is a last year cadet at a prestigious military high school and the son of an adviser to the General Secretary of the Communist Party. He persuades his father to promote his posting to Afghanistan, allegedly "for a future career", but in fact it is really to meet his love, Ania, who had previously emigrated to the United States. There, in Afghanistan, the young people become objects of a secret intelligence operation codenamed "Muhabbat," which, in Farsi, means "love."