In the Russian-Ukrainian war, the fighting ability and tenacity of the two armies are unprecedented, so almost every battle can be called a "bloody battle".
Even today, more than two years after the two sides started a full-scale war, the confrontation on the front is still fierce.
In particular, the Ukrainian troops are still quite stubborn in their defenses, and their will to fight has not been significantly reduced. You know, this is a tenacity shown under the onslaught of more than 5 times the enemy's artillery fire and gliding guided bombs, as well as the impact of a large number of armored vehicles.
This tenacity can be seen from the number of surrenders and captures of the Ukrainian army, and the number of surrenders of the Ukrainian army on the whole line counted by the Russian army is only a few people per day on average. Compared with the size of the troops participating in the battle and the length of the battle line, these surrendered soldiers are obviously not many.
Even in the recent Chasov Yar direction, far-right forces such as the 67th Mechanized Infantry Brigade of the Ukrainian Army deliberately kept their backbone and threw new recruits to the front line as artillery fire. Although these cannon fodder recruits failed to hold their positions, they did not surrender to the Russian army or were captured easily.
Therefore, although the current situation of the Ukrainian army is unfavorable, its combat resilience is still there, if we talk about the combat strength of its infantry units alone, we believe that even if the "peers" of dozens of NATO countries are pulled out one by one, they will not be comparable to the Ukrainian army.
Even the combat effectiveness of the infantry units of the Ukrainian army can be considered world-class. It can throw recruits who have undergone short-term training onto the front line, and still be able to exert considerable combat power.
It's not easy to do that.
Taking the IDF as an example, it has long been known as the "elite", but its standing army backbone does not even have much combat effectiveness; so much so that it has to rely on officers and backbones to form a "family team" in order to have the strength to fight, but even so, in the face battle with the Hamas infantry, it is still violently exported.
In the six months of Gaza, the Israeli army may not be able to gather ten fingers of the "material" that the Israeli army has been able to show in close combat.
For example, the 252nd Armored Division of the Israeli Army was unable to defeat a battalion of Hamas garrison Beit Hanoun, and the 98th Parachute Division commanded the 10th Brigade could not destroy a single Khan Younis Brigade of Hamas, which was rare in the entire history of human warfare.
In the Russian-Ukrainian war, there have been many battles for one city, one place, one village and one town over the years, but both the attackers and the defenders have shown a match in terms of combat power and tenacity.
Therefore, in the Russian-Ukrainian war, we can see a decent military confrontation, rather than the embarrassment of being beaten away by dogs and sticks in gold uniforms.
For example, the recently concluded fighting in Pervomaisk (Wuyi Village) lasted for 20 months, from August 2022 to April 2024.
Pervomaisk (Wuyi Village), located in the area of the river network, the settlements are distributed along the M30 highway in a long and narrow shape, with a population of more than 2,000 people before the war, which is relatively large among the village-level settlements in Wudong.
The Russian army began the fighting in the direction of Pervomaisk (Wuyi village) only after the capture of Pesky in August 2022.
However, the Russian army mentioned here is, of course, not the genuine Russian army, but the troops of the 1st Donetsk Army.
The front assumed by the 1st Donetsk Army stretched from Gerlovka in the northeast corner to the Marinka line in the southwest, and it had several operational directions at once.
At that time, Maryinka was not defeated, and Avadiivka was not defeated, and the main forces of the Don army were scattered in these two directions, and it was a confrontation and gnawing on Pervomaisk (Wuyi village).
The Don army itself did not have a superiority in strength, but it did have a certain advantage in firepower, so the advance on this line maintained an extremely slow but indeed continuous advance.
However, you can think that this 7-kilometer-long and narrow village can play for 20 months, and its progress must not be fast.
By the time Avadiivka changed hands, the 1st Donetsk Army controlled roughly half of the village, and the unit fighting here was the 9th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Don Army, formerly known as the 9th Naval Infantry Regiment of the Don Army.
Before the final stage of the Avadiivka, the 9th Motorized Infantry Brigade was responsible for the battles on the Vodany line on the southern flank of the city of A, in addition to the battles in the direction of Pervomaisk (May Day village).
Therefore, in the direction of Pervomaisk (Wuyi Village), it is roughly a battalion-level combat team's combat area, and the Ukrainian army is defending this area with a battalion-level unit of the 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade.
Because of this, the main force of the 9th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Don Army participated in the capture of Avadiivka.
After the city changed hands, the 9th Motorized Infantry Brigade was able to draw its troops westward and take advantage of the opportunity to storm Pervomaisk (Wuyi Village) and the uncontrolled part of the western side of Vodani.
At the same time, the 110th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Don Army also launched an attack on the Ukrainian army (also a unit of the 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade) in the direction of the village of Nevelsk, south of Pervomaisk (Wuyi village).
In this way, the 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Ukrainian Army will have to face the attack of two motorized infantry brigades of the Don Army, especially at that time, the artillery resources of the Ukrainian army were mainly invested in the "Seven Star Array" on the west side of Acheng, and it was not possible to take into account this side.
Therefore, the 110th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Don Army occupied Nevelsk with relative ease, because it was a small plateau, so it was able to support the battle in the direction of Pervomaisk (Wuyi Village) to the north.
The 9th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Don Army on this side adopted the idea of attacking along the river on two fronts, attacking on the west side of Vodani in the north and continuing to advance in the village of Pervomaisk (Wuyi Village) on the south side, while further north of the brigade's combat area, the armored units of the central cluster of the Russian army were attacking the field area south of Umansk.
Because the Acheng direction is more important, the 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade still has difficulty getting resources to support the defensive line.
By about 1 April, the 9th Motorized Infantry Brigade finally took control of all administrative areas of Vodany, and by about 10 April, it had finally captured Pervomaisk (Wuyi village).
This 7,000-meter road has been walked for 20 months! Many Don troops have not been able to see the day when the flag was planted in Wuyi Village, and countless Ukrainian soldiers have also buried their bones in this village, becoming one of the countless "missing people"; after all, until not long ago, Ukrainian officials only admitted that 31,000 people were killed, and the probability of winning the number here is really not high.
But even so, the Ukrainian army's persistence in the direction of Pervomaisk (Wuyi Village) can be called tenacious, and the Don army's troops, without much superiority in strength, and even on the premise of inferior strength in some periods, have always held on, that is, they have to fight fiercely to the end, house by house, meter by meter, and continue to advance, which can really be said to be stepping on a pool of blood and finally planting the flag.
Moreover, the ferocity of the brigades of the Don Army in offensive operations can be said to be vividly reflected on the recent front.
In addition to the 1st Motorized Infantry Brigade in the direction of Gorlovka, the 1st and 114th Brigades of the Don Army were west of Acheng, the 9th and 110th Brigades were in Pervomaisk (Wuyi Village) and Nevelsk, and the 5th Brigade was in Maryinkasy and Krasnogovka.
There are a large number of wounded and returned troops in its troops, even veterans who have returned from injuries many times, and their fighting will, especially their combat skills, are far from being comparable to those in the early stage of the war, and they have been replaced with a large number of heavy weapons after regularization, and now they have a great advantage in ammunition.