All language subtitles for 2000.Meters.to.Andriivka.2025.en

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Both Ukraine and Russia

are reporting fierce fighting
along the frontlines.

Ukrainian forces have

now launched their much talked
about counteroffensive.

The new counteroffensive,

expected to be the biggest
military operation in Europe

since World War II.

Russian forces

are concentrated,
they are deeply embedded.

They've been building
fortifications and defenses.

With virtually no independent
reporting from the frontlines,

it's impossible to assess

the degree to which
Ukraine's operation is underway

or whether it's having success.

I want to tell you a story.

A story thousands of years old.

A story of men
fighting for their land.

There is a forest
in Eastern Ukraine,

a narrow strip of trees

squeezed between
two minefields.

The only way to Andriivka,

a village on
the outskirts of Bakhmut.

This is a story of this forest

and the people who will
remain there forever.

6:00 a.m.

We are in the 3rd Assault
Brigade headquarters.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive
is underway.

Here on the eastern front,

the brigade's task
had been to move through

2,000 meters,
approximately one mile,

of the heavily fortified forest

and capture the strategic
village of Andriivka.

This would cut
the Russian supply road

to the occupied city
of Bakhmut.

And we want to be there
when it happens.

But it's hard for journalists
to get to the battlefield.

Our only chance is
to meet with Fedya,

the officer on the ground.

He is busy.

Duda, the coordinating officer,

has an idea.

We manage
to convince them to take us.

Duda tells us we are idiots

for wanting to go.

Duda sends a flag

and a note to Fedya.

If Andriivka is liberated,

his task will be
to raise the flag.

Wearing
the blue journalist vest

on the battlefield
is no longer an option.

It makes us priority targets.

If we are lucky,

today we'll get to Fedya
and film him raising the flag.

But we are all nervous.

The forest
leading to the village

has killed many men.

Before departing,

I kept looking at the map.

2,000 meters.

Three months.

It didn't make sense.

Why did it take so long?

Then they showed us.

Videos from
helmet cameras, drones.

Records of
all the violent battles

on the way to Andriivka.

Each one an attempt
to get closer.

Each one taking its toll.

Some of
these battles gained ground.

Some pushed the brigade back.

But they kept fighting.

And now we follow their steps.

8:30 a.m.

Our transport
reaches the forest.

One of the soldiers tells me,
"It's like landing on a planet

where everything
is trying to kill you."

But it's not another planet,
I tell myself.

It's the middle of Europe.

Now we have to get to Fedya.

But instead of him,
we meet one of his soldiers

with the call sign "Freak."

He calls us "pencils"

so that the Russians
intercepting radio chatter

don't know we arrived.

The battles moved forward,

closer to the village,

leaving the destroyed armored
vehicles and bodies behind.

The fields and the roads around
were mined by the Russians.

The forest is the only way.

The
village is 2,000 meters ahead.

35 seconds for
a mortar shell to fly.

A two-minute drive.

A ten-minute run.

But here, time doesn't matter.

Distance does.

And it's measured by pauses
between the explosions.

I hear over the radio

that Fedya is
in the middle of the fight.

The battle in Andriivka
is raging.

As we talk,

I'm thinking about Andriivka,

focusing on the radio chatter

and losing the thread
of the conversation.

But the camera keeps recording.

Freak was 12 when Russia
invaded Ukraine in 2014.

When the full-scale
invasion started,

he left university,
returned to his hometown,

and joined
the territorial defense.

From there, he moved
to the 3rd Assault Brigade.

At the time we speak, he is 22.

Five months from now,
he will be injured in a battle

for another forest,
his body never found.

Freak told us how the brigade

fought for this part
of the forest,

trying to push Russians
from their trenches.

Halfway to Andriivka.

Their helmet cameras captured
every step of the battle.

It's now 10:00 a.m.

We are still pinned down
in this damned foxhole,

waiting to get to Fedya.

At last, we start moving.

Andriivka is now
1,000 meters ahead.

Halfway.

The smell of death, explosives,

and freshly cut trees
becomes stronger.

I try to focus on
what needs to be done.

We need to be there
when Fedya raises the flag.

11:00 a.m.

We finally reach Fedya.

His first question to us:

"Where are your guns?"

Fedya is 24.

Battle-promoted to sergeant.

He has a scar on his lip from
playing war in his childhood

and a job in a warehouse
before the invasion.

Freak gives him the flag

and a note from headquarters,

and he settles in a dugout
to read it.

I knew
what he meant when he said

he never wanted
to be a soldier.

None of us did.

When we were children,

every boy in the school
got military lessons.

We marched, assembled
and disassembled Kalashnikovs.

We shot.

Ten bullets for each young man.

But few of us saw
any point in this.

There was no one to fight with.

We had no enemies.

Before each battle,

Fedya trains his men.

He shouts
at them and swears heavily.

He knows that
some of them will die.

When Russia invaded Ukraine,

each one of us
had to make a choice.

I took a camera
and started filming.

Fedya took a gun.

He was sure
Ukraine will win this war.

Fedya told us,

after the brigade liberated
two-thirds of the forest,

it was his battalion's turn
to push forward,

the first assault operation
for many of his men.

In headquarters,

Duda and other officers

guided Fedya and his team
through the battlefield.

Another 300 meters were taken.

But the further they advanced,

the harder it was
to keep pushing.

Medics could not believe
all these casualties

were coming
from that tiny forest.

If they
continued losing so many men,

they would not be able
to finish the offensive.

U.S. officials say

Ukraine's much anticipated
offensive

is slowly moving forward.

Progress is modest but steady,

according to
the Ukrainian forces,

as they reclaim
villages and trenches

dug by Russian forces.

Ukraine says it has
liberated several villages

from the Russians
in recent days.

Villagers emerged from

the basements, the bunkers
they'd been hiding in,

and were overjoyed to see
Ukrainian troops there,

to see the blue and yellow
Ukrainian flag

flying over their village
once again.

Over in the northeast,

that cauldron of violence,
Bakhmut,

has also been the scene
of some Ukrainian gains

of a few kilometers
in recent days.

Ukraine also taking

high casualties.

Ukraine is a relative David

to Russia's Goliath.

They can't afford to lose

three times the soldiers
that Russia does,

so it has to proceed carefully.

If that isn't good enough,

and actually they still end up
in a stalemate,

Western confidence
is likely to dip.

If
we're not getting results here,

then perhaps Ukraine wants
to think about another plan,

even some land concessions
for peace.

If Ukraine falls,

then Russian forces will be
on Europe's doorstep.

It becomes NATO's war.

1:30 p.m.

We stop again to wait for
the artillery duel to finish.

The day seems endless.

After his injury,
Fedya was sent to the hospital.

He quickly recovered
and returned to the forest.

Sheva is 46.

At the beginning of
the counteroffensive,

he left a comfortable position
in the military police

to volunteer with
the 3rd Assault Brigade.

He will be injured in a battle
five months from now

and will die in a hospital.

For the next battle,

Fedya's friend and
second in command, Gagarin,

replaced him in the forest.

He was 24.

Polonne, Western Ukraine.

He worked as a truck driver
in Europe.

When the full-scale
invasion started,

he returned and volunteered.

He led the platoon to battle.

They had to move
another 300 meters

and reach the end
of the forest.

After that, it was Andriivka.

His friend Kobzar

followed him
on the battlefield.

Gagarin was laid to rest

in his hometown, Polonne,

972 kilometers from Andriivka.

And the entire neighborhood
came to his funeral

to be with his mother
as she cried.

They said it was
the 56th funeral here.

Kobzar, the soldier

who held Gagarin's hand
as he was dying in the forest,

will be killed
five months from now

by a drone strike in a battle
for another village.

Western officials have

expressed disappointment in

a much vaunted
counteroffensive,

which began in June.

Ukraine has only taken back

an estimated 100 square miles
of territory since then.

Well,
U.S. intelligence is now saying

that Ukraine will fail to meet

their counteroffensive
key goals.

How sustainable is this level

of support when there's really
no end in sight to the war?

Russia has millions more men

from whom to draw.

There's no path
to a military victory here,

only more death.

The
counteroffensive was failing.

Few believed Ukraine
could advance any further.

But the brigade decided
to make its last stand.

As Gagarin was laid to rest,

the final battle
for Andriivka began.

All the battalions

gathered their forces.

First, they took positions
on the edge of the forest

and in houses on the outskirts.

Then, under the cover
of the smoke screen bombs,

they moved in.

2:00 p.m.

We are a hundred meters
from Andriivka.

Fedya
instructs us to start moving.

We are finally in Andriivka.

As Russians retreated,

their artillery
shot indiscriminately.

They were erasing
the village from the map.

In the last 100 meters,

there are bodies
scattered everywhere.

Mostly Russians.

A few Ukrainians.

As we walk in,
Fedya receives a message

that one of the soldiers in
his platoon has been injured.

He's severely shell-shocked.

We run
to the ruins of another house.

This one at least
has a basement.

We settle in the basement,

and artillery keeps hitting us.

It's only now
the understanding comes to me.

We really are in Andriivka.

But the village
doesn't exist anymore.

Among the ruins,

there is hardly a place
to raise the flag.

The villagers are dead or gone.

Everything is destroyed.

People, animals, memories.

And all that is left of it
is a name.

I don't argue,

but I doubt it will happen.

I know Ukraine doesn't have
enough resources

to continue
the counteroffensive.

I know the Russians will
continue to reduce cities

to a state where
there aren't even bricks left.

And the longer it all goes on,

the less the world
will care about it.

I'm afraid this land
will remain frozen frontline

for years.

8:00 p.m.

When we were sitting
in the basement,

Fedya told me,

in his dreams, he fights
like hell in this forest.

Then he wakes up
and goes back to the battle.

And I thought,
this war is a nightmare

none of us can wake up from.

I envy Fedya because
he believes we will.

He has the names of his friends
and the cities he has lost

and a gun and a flag
to avenge them.