Battalion (Season 1)

Battalion (Batalyon, 2016) is a Russian historical drama series you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Dmitri Meshiev. Spring 1917: the Tsar has abdicated, Bolshevik agitators are working the trenches, and the frontline is on the verge of collapse.

The Provisional Government authorises decorated war hero Maria Bochkareva to recruit an all-female volunteer combat unit — the Death Battalion — with an explicit mandate to shame wavering soldiers back into fighting. Maria Aronova, Maria Kozhevnikova, Marat Basharov, and Evgeny Dyatlov lead the cast.

The battalions were real. They fought in the summer of 1917, and their story sits at the centre of one of Russia's most chaotic turning points. Stream Battalion (2016) online on iFILM.