After his beating at the hands of Crossbones (last issue), Captain America meets with Nick Fury to track down the mysterious Russian the villain mentioned. Fury receives the Interpol file on Aleksander Lukin, former Soviet general and protégé of the notorious Vasily Karpov, who went rogue after the fall of the USSR and has since resurfaced as the head of the Kronas Corporation. When Cap hears the names Kronas and Karpov, he recalls an incident from the War….
On the Eastern Front in 1942, Cap and Bucky were accompanying a group of Russian soldiers on a mission during Operation Uranus, the Soviet plan to cut off the German supply lines. The Invaders have been assigned to locate a rumored Nazi superweapon and put it out of commission. Attacked by a squad of Nazis, the American heroes save the day, with Cap taking out a Panzer tank. They are shocked when one of the Russians summarily executes a prisoner; the Russian explains that the man was his cousin, one of many Russian deserters and POWs who volunteered to fight for the Nazis. They reach the camp where they link up with the Sub-Mariner and Human Torch. Russian commander Colonel Vasily Karpov is brutally interrogating prisoners, to Cap’s disgust. Karpov defends his tactics since he is fighting on his own country’s soil against an invader, and Cap would do the same if the Nazis were in New York. Cap demands that Karpov follow his orders on the next day’s assault on their objective: a small village called Kronas.
The next morning, Cap leads a squad to the outskirts of the town; Bucky slips inside the perimeter and kills the guards…but it turns out to be a trap. Master Man appears and engages Namor and the Torch in the air, while Cap and Bucky assault the building where the weapon is housed. Suddenly a death ray cuts a swath through the village, the Red Skull at the controls. The Nazi madman then sets the device to self-destruct to cover his escape while the Invaders evacuate the village. Several Russians are killed by a booby-trap while attempting to seize the weapon; Karpov defends the sacrifice by citing the Russians’ lack of any advantages…save their winter. In the aftermath of the battle, Karpov takes in a newly orphaned boy—Aleksander Lukin….
Back in the present, Cap wonder if Karpov is the mastermind behind the scheme; Fury disagrees, telling him that the KGB General died twenty years ago, believing Cap had died in 1945. Cap request transportation to check up on something from these memories he keeps having. After he leaves, an aide asks whether Fury has told Cap about the file on "Winter Soldier." Fury declares he would rather be sure of the facts before he destroys Cap’s world….