Ira Rodionova

Fitil is a popular Soviet/Russian television satirical/comedy short film series which ran for about 500 episodes. Some of the episodes were aimed at children, and were called Фитилёк, Fitilyok, Little Fuse. Each issue contained from the few short segments: documentary, fictional and animated ones. Directed by various artists, including Leonid Gaidai who presented his famous trio of Nikulin, Vitsin and Morgunov into the cast. It was called in USSR as "the anecdotes from the Soviet government".

The 22nd of June, 1941. A usual morning in a usual children camp near the very frontier. Children are splashing in a river, and take the landing troops, coming down from the sky, with enthusiasm, thinking that this is a military training. But these are fascists. They drive all children together in a camp, fence them in a barblock and announce that all of them will soon be sent to Germany. The Soviet tank battalion, located nearby, makes an attempt to save the children, but is defeated. Only one tank driven by uncle Vasia survived. Accidentally the survived tankman meets Michael, a boy who was ordered by Germans to burn pioneer neckties. He asks uncle Vasia to help him rescue children from captivity. The tankman agrees. The rescue of young pioneers operation starts on the only one tank with one little assistant.