A disgraced member of the military police investigates a series of nasty child murders during the Stalin-era Soviet Union.

Raisa Demidov: Leo, do you know what people get around here when they demand the truth? Do you? They get terror.
Leo Demidov: Raisa, we are already dead.
Vasili: Is that how little you think of me?
Alexei Andreyev: I don't think anything of you.
[first lines]
Tortoise: Your father?
Young Leo Demidov: [yes]
Tortoise: Dead?
Young Leo Demidov: [yes]
Tortoise: What's your name?
Young Leo Demidov: I don't want it any more.
Tortoise: I'll give you a new one. Leo. Like a lion.
Leo Demidov: If you are so innocent, why do you run? Hmm?
Anatoly Tarasovich Brodsky: That's a very good question. I run because you were following me. When you are followed, you are arrested. And when you are arrested, you are already guilty. So you tell me, why did I run?
Leo Demidov: Raisa. Do you think that... that I am... That I am truly a frightful man? You think maybe I am... a monster?
Raisa Demidov: [quietly but firmly] No.
Title Card: There is no murder in paradise.
Title Card: In 1933, at the height of Joseph Stalin's state-imposed famine against the Ukrainian people, an estimated 25,000 died each day from starvation. The systematic extermination by hunger known as the Holodomor, left millions of children orphaned.
Vladimir Malevich: At the end of the day, hero, monster... we are both killers, you and I. Tell me, are there no children on your conscience, Leo? You knew what you were doing and you chose to do it. But me,
[sobbing]
Vladimir Malevich: I can't help it. I can't.
Tortoise: What did you expect when you came here? That we didn't mind dying? That Raisa would be saved? But if you don't denounce her, we will die, all four of us. With the only difference, that you would die knowing in your heart that you did the right thing. And so you calculate. One dead. Or four. One dead. Or four.