36 Minutes of Hell - Ukrainian Scouts Storm Russian Trenches in Heavy Close Combat

He's throwing it away, guys!We need to destroy him!Oh, fuck!Let me see!

Two shrapnel, or two rounds.Interpreter is out.

We can't let him go.

On September 16, 2023, the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the village of Andreevka in the Donetsk region.The Russian forces defending it, elements of the 72nd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, were defeated.This is the footage the soldiers recorded during the final assault.To understand what it cost them, we need to start at the beginning.The operation to liberate Andreevka has been ongoing for weeks.The 3rd Assault Brigade has launched three previous assaults on the fortified forest belts and trench networks that surround the village.

All three have pushed forward, all three have taken ground, and all three have come at a cost.Before the 4th assault begins, one of the soldiers records a message.He is already wounded from a previous attempt.He is going back in anyway.Around him, the rest of the assault group prepares to do the same thing they have done three times before.Move through the same forest belts, clear the same trench lines, face defenders who know exactly where they will come from.

The assault begins.In close quarters forest fighting, the only advantage an attacker has is speed.Stop moving, and you become a fixed target for artillery, drones, or the next defender in the next hole.The soldiers advance in pairs.One moves, the other covers.Contact is immediate.

A soldier takes a hit within the first moments.In the noise and confusion, no one can confirm the details.How bad?Where exactly?There is no time to find out.The group must keep pushing or the entire assault stalls in the open.

The soldier running forward is screaming for suppressive fire.His teammates need to keep the enemy's heads down while he closes the distance.At this range, sometimes less than five meters between positions, a two -second lapse in covering fire can be fatal.The margin between a successful push and a taken -down soldier is that thin.As the assault group advances through the first trench line, they reach a fortified Russian dugout.At least one defender is alive inside and fighting.

The Ukrainians attempt to force him out with thermobaric grenades.These weapons are designed specifically for enclosed spaces.The pressure wave inside a bunker is devastating, but the defender inside is fast, and he is fighting back.The defender is catching the grenades and throwing them back before they detonate.This is one of the most dangerous exchanges in trench warfare.Each throw is a bet on who reacts faster.

The Ukrainians adjust, trying to find an angle that gives the defender less time.

There's a faggot sitting here.I hit him with a grenade.He doesn't want to get out yet.Get out, bitch!Here's a faggot with a machine gun.I saw how he put the gun down.

Bring me a grenade.I'll smoke you out, bitch.

There's a fight there.Give me a grenade.

There's a fight there.A hole is coming out.Do you know what to do?

The defender has a loophole, a small slit in the fortification wall that allows him to fire outward without exposing his body.The Ukrainians can see the barrel of his weapon poking through.They try a different approach.

They offer him surrender.

The offer is genuine.Come out and you live.The response is either silence or gunfire.The soldiers go back to clearing.

Why the fuck did you come here, bitch?Tell me, why the fuck?You broke my fucking house!did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?

Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!

Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!

Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!

Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!

Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!Why the f**k did you come here?Tell me!

Why the f One of the soldiers is from this region.The trenches he is fighting through run through what used to be his home.For a moment, the tactical gives way to something personal.Then the moment passes and the clearing continues.300 is the military code for wounded.Another member of the group has been hit.

Who and how badly remains unclear.The assault does not pause.Minus.Another position cleared.The first trench line is falling.Further into the network, the soldiers reach positions where some Russian defenders are ready to give up.

Others are not.The Ukrainians handle both.The terms are stated once.Come out unarmed and live.Try anything else.And the response is immediate.

In trench clearing, accepting a surrender is practical.It saves ammunition, reduces risk, and ends a fight faster than targeting a man who is dug in.But the window for the offer is short.

Do you have grenades?You've given up already!Guys, please...That's it, get out of here!Hurry up!Come on, come on!

Hurry up!Get out!To the right!There!

To the top!To the top!

To the top!To the top!And to the right, there!There are guys there, yes!

It's okay, come on, come on, come on!

Come on, come on, come on!

A prisoner is secured and moved to the rear.Tax collector is the call sign for the soldier handling him.In the seconds after clearing multiple fortified positions at close range, one soldier says he liked the action.This is not bloodlust.It is adrenaline.The human body, having narrowly survived repeated mortal danger, sometimes floods with something that feels like exhilaration.

It is involuntary.It does not last.Another wounded soldier needs to be moved.Casualties are mounting and the assault is only halfway done.The next objective is the second trench line, deeper in the forest belt.With the first positions cleared, the assault group pushes forward into the forest.

The second Russian trench line is approximately 50 meters ahead.Radio coordination guides their approach.

Two Russian RPG gunners on the left flank are no more.

The path to the second trench opens.The order to push comes immediately.50 meters of forest floor and then the next line of prepared positions.

Russian defenders begin pulling back.

This is the critical moment of any trench assault.A retreating enemy can either be chased into a route or be given enough time to regroup and dig in at the next position.The Ukrainians push hard.The second trench line is taken, but holding new ground and treating casualties at the same time stretches the group thin.Inside the captured trench, the toll of the assault starts to show.A wounded soldier is stuck in the trench, calling for his teammate Volodya to shift out of the way.

He needs a tourniquet, but the trench is so narrow that there is physically not enough room to apply one.Basic medical care in a space designed for one person standing sideways becomes a desperate negotiation over centimeters.Makar and Volodya, both wounded, both need evacuation from a trench they just captured, while the soldiers around them are still fighting the enemy that just retreated from it.Evacuating wounded during an active assault is among the most dangerous things infantry can do.The men carrying the wounded move slowly.They are easy targets, and they cannot shoot back.

Every meter of ground between the trench and the extraction point is exposed, and now the situation gets worse.The Ukrainian drone with a drop munition is sent after a Russian group on the right flank that is still engaging the assault group.The drone suppresses the position long enough to create a window.The evacuation vehicle moves in.The ramp drops.The vehicle is already full of wounded from earlier waves.

There is no room for anyone else.It drives off to unload and come back.

The remaining wounded are left in the open, waiting for the vehicle to return.

The combat around them has not stopped.

Barz!Barz!Capture!Barz!Barz!Capture!

Urgent evacuation to VTM!Urgent!Smoke!Smoke!I don't know what kind of landing this is.Let's go to the landing.

I can't help you.Now we will help you.I have two shrapnel and two bullets.

The soldier coordinating this evacuation has two shrapnel wounds and two bullet wounds.He is still standing, still talking, still directing others to cover.We can hear it in his voice.The pain held back by nothing but the knowledge that if he stops, the soldiers around him, who are worse off, have no one to move them.Even while bleeding, the soldiers maintain tactical spacing.A group of wounded men clustered together is a single target.

Discipline holds even when the body is failing.One soldier says plainly that another saved his life.No drama, no embellishment, he would not have made it out alone.And someone came for him anyway.

You can't, bro.No.You can't smoke, bro.Please bear with me.Give me a smoke.

this entire assault, not a single wounded soldier is abandoned.Every man who goes down is checked, treated, and moved.The word that appears most in this footage is not a command or a call sign.It is the word brother.The forest belt is cleared.The trench lines around the canal are in Ukrainian hands.

The assault now enters its final phase.The soldiers push into Andreevka itself.The nature of the fighting changes.Trenches and dugouts give way to houses, fences, and open streets.Cover is scarce.Sight lines stretch further.

Every window and doorway becomes a potential firing position.A foothold is established inside the village.The soldiers begin expanding outward, identifying and engaging remaining defenders.in the buildings around them.Soldier spots a defender directly in front of him but is pinned and cannot advance to engage.The assault group works around him.

Stop.Stop.

Control.

Shoot.

FPV drones support the infantry through the village clearing.Grenades, direct fire, and drone strikes are combined to reduce each pocket of resistance.The method is the same for every building.Suppress, approach, clear.

Come on, I'll cover you

Engaged at the same time.One soldier holds a window under fire while others enter through the door.Everything is shouted, improvised, and executed in seconds.There is no rehearsal for any of this.

I have an idea, bro, to close this hatch with a whistle.

Which one?Yes, you can.Come on, faster, faster, faster, faster.Pull it back, pull it back.Yeremych, pull it back, cover it, so that we can close this hatch.Come on.

Zvanya!

Unlock it, documents, blyat, and file a request, blyat.

There are no documents.

Major.There are no documents.He says that his name is Major.How did he accept?He said that 120 people came in today.In general, there were about 160 of them.

50 -60 were killed.

They were all killed in the morning.

All of them?Only we started to storm them, right?Did you kill the rest of them?

A captured Russian officer provides the picture the soldiers have not had until now.His rank is major.He tells them that approximately 160 Russian soldiers were defending the village.When the Ukrainian assault started that morning, 50 to 60 of those defenders fled.The rest stayed and fought.By this point in the operation, the 3rd Assault Brigade has taken down or captured the majority of the force that chose to remain.

The defense of Andrivka is collapsing.Isolated Russian soldiers still occupy scattered positions across the village.The Ukrainians sweep through what is left.Resistance thins out.Bodies are checked.Positions are confirmed.

Empty.The tempo of the fighting slows for the first time since the assault began.The battle for Andreevka is reaching its end.The village is clear.After weeks of repeated assaults through forest belts, trench networks, and finally the buildings of the village itself, the fighting is over.In the quiet that follows, one of the

soldiers speaks to the camera.He wants to film the flag going up.Not for propaganda, not for a press release.He wants it filmed so the people who send replacements can see that the job is done.So his unit can finally rest.The exhaustion in his voice is complete.

Weeks of fighting compressed into a single request.Film the flag.Send the relief.Let us stop.Even in the final moments, wounded are still being carried.The operation does not end cleanly.

It ends the way all of them do, slowly, painfully, with men still being moved and frequencies still crackling with coordination.The flag of Ukraine and the banner of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade are raised over Andreevka.On September 16, 2023, the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade fully liberated the village of Andreevka in the Donetsk region, defeating the elements of the Russian 72nd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade that had occupied it.The soldiers who fought in the battlebattle were volunteers.This was their footage.