On the evening of 17 January, the Alpine Army Corps commander, General Gabriele Nasci, ordered a full retreat.

On the morning of January 26, the spearheads of the Tridentina reached the hamlet of Nikolayevka, occupied by the 48th Guards Rifle Division.

General Nasci ordered a frontal assault and at 9:30 am the 6th Alpini Regiment with the battalions "Verona", "Val Chiese", and "Vestone", the Tridentina division's II Mixed Engineer Battalion, the Mountain Artillery Group "Bergamo" of the 2nd Mountain Artillery Regiment, and three German Sturmgeschütz III commenced the attack.

By noon the Italian forces had reached the outskirts of the village and the Alpine Corps' Chief of Staff General Giulio Martinat brought up reinforcements: the 5th Alpini Regiment with the battalions "Edolo", "Morbegno" and "Tirano", and the remaining mountain artillery groups "Vicenza" and "Valcamonica" of the 2nd Mountain Artillery Regiment, as well as the remnants of the Alpini Battalion "L’Aquila" of the "Julia" division.

[1] By sunset the Alpini battalions were still struggling to break the reinforced Soviet lines and in a last effort to decide the battle before nightfall General Luigi Reverberi, commander of the Tridentina division, ordered the remaining troops and stragglers, which had arrived over the course of the afternoon, to assault the Soviet positions in a human wave attack.