A harrowing new documentary from Mstyslav Chernov on Ukraine’s ailing counteroffensive against the Russian invasion brought tears and a standing ovation to the Sundance film festival, two years after the film-maker premiered 20 Days in Mariupol, his Oscar-winning account of the siege’s first weeks.

In 2000 Meters from Andriivka, Chernov is once again beside fellow Ukrainians amid Russian attacks. But whereas 20 Days in Mariupol focused primarily on civilians killed, maimed or mourning during the initial Russian invasion in 2022, Andriivka embeds with Ukrainian soldiers during the military’s counteroffensive in the east throughout 2023, at a time when there was no other independent reporting from the war’s frontlines.

The counteroffensive largely failed to significantly push – back Russian troops, as both sides faced heavy losses that are difficult to accurately estimate, let alone understand; as of October 2024, about 115,000 Russians had been killed and 500,000 wounded since the start of the full-scale invasion, while independent assessments put the Ukrainian losses at somewhere between 62,000 and 100,000.

“I really want those numbers – those casualties, the kilometers, miles that are just statistics – I want those names that are just names on a map to have meaning to them. And that’s why this film exists,” said Chernov while introducing the project at the Utah-based film festival.

The 106-minute film, an Associated Press and PBS Frontline co-production, presents “a story of people fighting for their land”, he says in voiceover after the opening scene. That scene, like several others, puts the viewer in first-person, real-time war filmed through a soldier’s helmet camera, as he and his comrades are bombarded by Russian shells in a graveyard of trees.

As with his prior film on the conflict, 2000 Meters from Andriivka proceeds in numerical chapters, as Ukraine’s third assault brigade advances, meter by meter over several weeks, through a narrow strip of forest sandwiched between two minefields and leading to the village of Andriivka; reclaiming the one-street town would cut off a key Russian supply line outside the eastern city of Bakhmut. The distance is seemingly short – 2km, 1.25 miles, a two-minute drive, a 10-minute run. “But here, time doesn’t matter. Distance does,” says Chernov in voiceover.

The film cuts between soldiers’ helmet-cam footage of the arduous, deadly advance – the strip is occupied by Russian snipers in dugouts, and constantly at risk from artillery fire – and Chernov’s journey with the unit during its final advance in September 2023. Entering the 2km strip of forest – mostly splintered trees, foxholes and military debris – is like “landing on a planet where everything is trying to kill you”, says Chernov in voiceover. “But it’s not another planet. It’s the middle of Europe.”

Chernov began working on the project as he was screening the acclaimed 20 Days in Mariupol around the world, returning to Ukraine amid travel to meet with the brigade as the counteroffensive settled into a slow, bitter, lethal stalemate. “Things were already not going well” with the counteroffensive by the time he started filming, Chernov said during a Q&A following the documentary’s premiere in Park City.

The project changed significantly as the counteroffensive advanced and the war ground on, claiming more and more lives. “This film has changed its meaning many times while we were making it, because as we were making it, more and more of the people we knew were dying,” said Chernov. Of the four brigade members he initially met with to view their helmet-camera footage, only one remains alive.

2000 Meters from Andriivka is ultimately a distressing and deeply disconsolate portrait of a pyrrhic victory – by the time the third assault brigade “liberates” Andriivka, the village is nothing but rubble, devoid of residents or even a place to hang the Ukrainian flag. “All that is left of it is a name,” says Chernov in the film, before voicing a longstanding fear: “The longer the war goes on, the less people will care about it.”

The Ukrainian counteroffensive itself was largely a failed objective; Russia has retaken much of the gained territory, including what’s left of Andriivka in May 2024. As of January 2025, the film notes, Russia controlled nearly 20% of Ukraine. The war continues, nearing the three-year mark of the Russian invasion with no sign of either the Kremlin relenting or Ukraine surrendering. It is a war of attrition claiming soldiers at a rate unseen in Europe since the second world war.

During the Park City screening, Chernov resisted any easy messages or proclamations, insisting the film does the same, existing instead as a document of war and of Ukrainian resistance. “I don’t like messages. I don’t like imperatives. I don’t like moralizing people. I really, really like questions,” he said in response to an audience question. “What was important to me is … that names matter. They should be remembered. This is part of our history – every person, every name matters. That’s really what I want. Everything else is a question.”

• 2000 Meters from Andriivka is screening at the Sundance film festival with a release date to be announced