In 2001 he filed exclusive reports for TV channel Inter from Afghanistan covering stories on different sides of the conflict including Taliban fighters and Northern Alliance factions.

Victor Bout, a Russian national who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2012 after being found guilty of conspiracy to kill US officials and delivering anti-aircraft missiles to a terrorist organisation, is believed to be the prototype of the protagonist of the novel.

On 7 March 2014, during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Crimea, Tsaplienko was captured and tortured by armed pro-Russian activists after filming the siege and assault of a Ukrainian military base by Russian troops in Sevastopol.

The next day, a list of injured journalists was mentioned in the statement of M-me Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media: "A number of journalists have been threatened, assaulted, physically attacked and several members of the media have been severely injured while covering the events in Crimea.

They include Argumenti nedeli-Krym (Stanislav Yurchenko), Associated Press Television News, BBC, CNN, Inter channel (Olena Mekhanik, Andriy Tsaplienko and two operators), Russkaya Planeta (Pavel Nikulin), STB (Oleksii Simakov, Oleksandr Albinskyi, Vyacheslav Skvorchevskyi, Igor Levenok), 5 channel (Anton Laktionov) and a number of freelancers, including Boryana Katsarova and Dimiter Kenarov.

First they started firing from Smerch (heavy multiple rocket launcher), then from 122 mm caliber artillery, then a mortar was connected, and at the final stage it was a tank.