‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’ Review: War as a First-Person Experience

The familiar distinction between reality and video games seems to dissolve while watching 2000 Meters to Andriivka, a brutal documentary that focuses on what will likely become a minor, easily forgotten chapter of the war in Ukraine—one that the director of 20 Days in Mariupol portrays with the harrowing efficiency of a frontline correspondent. That is, quite literally, what Mstyslav Chernov is doing here. A Ukrainian journalist working for the Associated Press, Chernov embeds himself with a platoon tasked, in the midst of the 2023 counteroffensive, with capturing the border town of Andriivka, considered strategically significant in the war against Russia. Reaching it, however, requires crossing the perilous two kilometers referenced in the film’s title—far from a negligible distance under constant fire.

What ultimately stands out is not the objective itself, but the way the mission is narrated. The film is largely told through cameras mounted on the soldiers’ helmets as they move—cautiously, crouched, firing, hiding—toward their target. The resulting images, movements, and perspectives inevitably evoke the sensation of playing a first-person war video game, where subjective camera angles collapse the distance between viewer and protagonist. Amid shouted orders, fragments of conversations, and the relentless crack of gunfire, Chernov guides the viewer forward, inch by inch, through rows of dead trees leading to the small, devastated town.

Chernov’s voiceover accompanies both advances and setbacks. It is reflective and anticipatory, and at the film’s harshest moments it informs the audience that certain soldiers—heard moments earlier sharing anecdotes or casual remarks—will die just months later, while others are seen falling in real time. Although the film does not fully develop a gallery of clearly identifiable characters, the clash between the fierce patriotism of these Ukrainian soldiers, willing to sacrifice everything in an asymmetrical war, and the grim reality they encounter is devastating.

As in his previous film, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary two years ago, Chernov can be unflinchingly raw. This is evident not only when a seemingly gentle exchange between soldiers is followed by the revelation that one—or both—will soon be dead, but also in several specific and extremely graphic scenes. Composed of long, constantly moving shots, interrupted only by aerial images that situate the battle within a clearly defined terrain, the film is simultaneously suffocating, dramatic, and propulsive, generating an adrenaline rush akin to what soldiers themselves are likely experiencing in similar situations.

The documentary’s immersive style invites deeper consideration. At times, its resemblance to video game aesthetics risks trivializing what is being shown, momentarily transforming the experience into an action film or a mission destined to end in a Game Over. But that is not the effect Chernov is after. On the contrary, the aim is to confront viewers—through participation rather than didacticism—with the very real dangers inherent in such missions and confrontations, even at the risk that the spectacle might strike some as perversely compelling. The advance toward Andriivka may be presented like a game, but the consequences are profoundly real—too real.

Amid this overwhelming chaos, Chernov includes moments and reflections that deepen the sense of anguish. Whether in the funerals depicted or in the evident futility of these hard-fought “conquests,” the film makes one thing clear: the only possible resolution to this conflict is a political one. When confronted with the outcome of so much effort and sacrifice—both in the immediate results of this particular offensive and in the closing titles that detail what followed in the region and the war at large—it becomes impossible to avoid a retrospective sense of impact, the haunting realization that none of it ever truly made sense.