Sputnik (Russian: Спутник) is a 2020 Russian science-fiction horror film directed by Egor Abramenko in his feature directorial debut. It stars Oksana Akinshina as a young doctor who is recruited by the Soviet military to assess a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and returned to Earth with a dangerous organism living inside him. Alongside Akinshina, the film's cast includes Pyotr Fyodorov and Fyodor Bondarchuk.

In 1983, during the last hot period of the Cold War, two Russian cosmonauts engaged in an orbital research mission experienced something inexplicable while returning to Earth: they see something moving outside their ship. The spacecraft malfunctions on re-entry and crashes in Kazakhstan, and only one of the cosmonauts, Konstantin, survives. He is taken to an isolated military research facility, where Dr. Tatyana Klimova, a young psychiatrist under review for her controversial treatment methods in psychiatry, is brought in, recruited by the officer in charge, Colonel Semiradov. She is not told the real reason for Konstantin's quarantine, but she soon discovers that the cosmonaut brought back an extraterrestrial life-form inside his own body without knowing it himself. The creature comes out during the night, while its host is asleep. Colonel Semiradov reveals to her that she is here to determine how to separate Konstantin and the creature, since they seem to have developed a completely symbiotic relationship, with the creature living in the esophagus of the cosmonaut and benefiting from his nutrients, while Konstantin has made an impossible recovery from his injuries received after the crash-landing.

Tatyana confronts Konstantin by telling him she knows he has a child whom he has abandoned at an orphanage, implying he is not a national hero but a coward who does not care about his son, with the purpose of stressing him. Thanks to this, she discovers that the creature is affected by hormone levels and that one of the videos she has been shown has been altered, which leads to her discovering that the creature does not feed from whatever Konstantin eats, but rather eats live humans, and that Semiradov has been feeding it prisoners. The creature shows itself to its victims in order to augment their fear, which makes the human brain release cortisol, from which the alien obtains its nutrition. Disgusted and horrified by this, she confronts Semiradov, only to be told that the real reason they are here is to find a way to turn the alien into a weapon that they can control. He asks her if she will cooperate, to which she seems to agree.

Later, because she has developed a caring relationship with Konstantin, she takes him on a run around the facility, and under the guise of exercising she informs him that he has a parasitic creature inside him and the plans of the military for him. They agree to evade surveillance and meet later on, when she shows him the bodies of the people the creature killed, and the still living astronaut who was in the spacecraft with Konstantin: he was not infected because he had cancer, which had gone undetected by the tests done before the mission, but which the creature must have been able to sense. It is revealed that Konstantin was well aware of his unwanted guest and of what the creature does when it is not attached to him. Tatyana is shocked at this revelation, and Konstantin tells her that, in order to take care of his son, he will do anything in order to get out of this place.

Tatyana finally determines that she wants to help Konstantin and with the help of another doctor inside the facility, stages an escape. She shows Konstantin a syringe with drugs that will simulate Addison's disease, the same type of disease the other cosmonaut had. She reasons this would force the creature out, hopefully dying within the hour outside its host.

As they make their escape, they are ambushed by Semiradov, who sends armed soldiers after them. Tatyana is injured, and Konstantin asks her for the syringe. Upon injecting himself, the alien emerges and kills the soldiers. Tatyana and Konstantin run away, but they do not make it far before Konstantin collapses. Tatyana realizes that Konstantin cannot survive without the alien, as they have become completely symbiotic, and she surrenders when Semiradov catches up with them. The Colonel has brought the now heavily injured creature in order to force it back inside Konstantin; the latter however has the creature kill Semiradov and his men, setting Tatyana and himself finally free. However, as the authorities descend on them, alerted to the monstrous experimentations of Semiradov, a revived Konstantin shoots himself in order to kill the creature, and himself alongside it.

Sometime later, Tatyana adopts Konstantin's son, and it is revealed she herself lived in an orphanage as a young girl.

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