In a Foxhole, a Soldier’s One Request: ‘Don’t Make Me Out as a Hero’

About an hour into the new feature documentary 2000 Meters to Andriivka, a Ukrainian soldier makes a haunting request.

The soldier, who goes by the call sign “Sheva,” is part of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, which is carrying out a grueling, meter-by-meter counteroffensive that aims to retake the strategic Ukrainian town of Andriivka from Russia.

This is the 46-year-old’s first battle. He left a comfortable position with the military police to volunteer on the war’s front lines. And as Associated Press journalists Mstyslav Chernov and Alex Babenko talk with him in a foxhole in a strip of forest that’s smoking and shaking from Russian artillery fire, Sheva says he has just one thing to ask of them.

“Don’t make me out as a hero,” he says, adding, “I haven’t done anything heroic yet, and here I am on camera. I … it shouldn’t be like that. There are those who have done so much.”

In the same scene, which is embedded above, Sheva’s ultimate fate is revealed.

“He will be injured in a battle five months from now,” Chernov says in the film’s narration, “and will die in a hospital.”

The revelation is an emotional shock to the system in a documentary that is full of them.

‘A Crack Between the Horrifying Reality’

Since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where it took home the Directing Award for World Cinema Documentary, 2000 Meters to Andriivka has moved theatergoers with its immersive portrayal of war in the trenches — from visceral battles to quietly profound moments of reflection, including the one with Sheva in the foxhole.

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2000 Meters to Andriivka

November 25, 2025

From FRONTLINE, The Associated Press, and the Oscar-winning team behind 20 Days in Mariupol —  including Chernov, who grew up two hours from Andriivka; producer and editor Michelle Mizner; producer Raney Aronson-Rath; and executive producers Aronson-Rath and Derl McCrudden — the film has its U.S. broadcast and streaming premiere Nov. 25, 2025, on PBS and online.

It follows the men of the 3rd Assault Brigade on a 2023 counteroffensive as they fight through roughly one mile of a heavily fortified forest on their mission to reach and reclaim Andriivka, and as the Sisyphean nature of their quest becomes more and more apparent.

2000 Meters to Andriivka’s portrayal of combat, which draws on the soldiers’ own helmet camera video, is vivid and harrowing. But for both the filmmakers and audiences, the moments of human connection between the explosions have reverberated just as powerfully.

In the scene above, Sheva talks with Chernov and Babenko about his wife, who is helping to raise the couple’s young grandson: “I started to worry about her because she’s worried about me.” And he tells them about what he needs to do to his house once he returns home: “I need to fix the toilet.”

Reflecting on the film, Chernov said it struck him that, under different circumstances, he might’ve had such a conversation with Sheva after running into him at a bar or store, rather than in a foxhole.

“I realized that the most important part on the battlefield is not the battle,” he said. “It’s that conversation that is happening somewhere in a crack between the horrifying reality.”

As an editor, Mizner said the scene with Sheva is crucial to the film.

“When I was first going through the footage from Mstyslav and came across him and Alex talking with Sheva in the foxhole, I thought, ‘Wow; this is an amazing moment,’” she said. “I was so excited, and I called Mstyslav right away, and I said, ‘This guy is so great — who is he?’ And I remember Mstyslav saying, ‘That is Sheva. I’m sorry to tell you, he has died.’”

Mizner’s experience of learning about Sheva’s death almost immediately after first forming an emotional connection to him would help inform the film’s approach. Instead of delaying that information until the end of the film, 2000 Meters to Andriivka shares the news that some of the participants have since died via mid-scene narration from Chernov, even as they appear on screen, very much alive.

It’s a decision that forces the audience to grapple in the moment with life, loss and the unsettling questions the film raises about war itself.

Living On, Onscreen

After Sheva asks not to be portrayed as a hero, Chernov follows up with a clarifying question.

“How do you think the camera can make you look like a hero if you’re not a hero?” the filmmaker asks.

Sheva doesn’t respond with words. With the sound of explosions audible, the camera lingers on his face before the screen cuts to black.

Sheva’s wife was in the audience at the documentary’s premiere in Ukraine this summer, along with the families of other fallen soldiers featured in the film.

“And I remember I was sitting in that cinema and Sheva’s wife was right there, and she saw the film for the first time, and she heard people cry when we find out that he died,” Chernov said. “And also for the first time, she heard that he was talking about her in that trench.”

Afterwards, Chernov told The Guardian, Sheva’s wife approached him and said, “Thank you: now I will be able to show his grandson who his grandfather was.” Chernov added, “I could strip this film down to one basic meaning: which is of being able to salvage at least pieces of these people’s lives, for their families.”

Towards the end of 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Chernov asks Sheva a question that still resonates.

“What if this war,” the filmmaker asks the soldier, “is until the end of our lives?”