Suspilne investigative journalists have succeeded in identifying the commander of the Russian regiment which imprisoned 369 residents of Yahidne, including 69 children, in a school basement for a month. The Russian invaders used the civilians as human shields to ensure that Ukraine’s Armed Forces could not shell the first two floors of the school which the Russians had turned into their headquarters. Ten civilians died as a result of the horrific conditions in which they were held prisoner, and many others have health issues to this day.
Yahidne is a small village, less than 20 kilometres from Chernihiv. It was seized by the Russians seven days after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the invaders holding virtually the entire population hostage for 27 days, from 3 to 30 March 2022, while they tried, unsuccessfully, to seize control of Chernihiv. The overcrowding was appalling in a basement without ventilation, and without toilets, with the residents forced to use buckets. There was not enough water, or food, and literally no space to lie down. If a person died in the evening, their body remained in the general area, together with adults and children. It was only the next morning that the invaders would allow the bodies to be carried to a boiler room.
Alla Sadovnyk and other Suspilne journalists have, since 2022, been tracking down the Russians believed to be implicated in different war crimes, including those in Yahidne. During a visit to Yahidne in July 2022, survivors told them that their makeshift prison in the school basement had been under the control of two Russian officers, whom they knew by their call-names or nom de guerre - ‘Maple’ [Клён, pronounced ‘klyon’] and ‘Spider’ [‘Паук’, or ‘Pa-uk’]. The journalists published their first report, entitled ‘Survivor’s Diary’ in October 2022. In this, they explained that, although it had been soldiers from Russia’s 55th Motor Rifle Regiment that were based in Yahidne, and who rounded the residents up, it was members of the Yekaterinburg-based 228th Motor Rifle Regiment who were responsible for holding residents, including children and the elderly, prisoner in horrifically dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The report began with one harrowing memory from 21 March 2022 when a woman [the grandmother of a month-old baby] approached ‘Klyon’ [‘Maple’], saying that the baby was suffocating in the basement and needed fresh air. The Russian said: “Let it suffocate”. It was this same individual who was asked by a man suffering from cancer to be released so that he could lie in his own bed and take his medication. The man was told to “hang himself”.
Just over a year later, in November 2023, the same journalist team reported that they had finally managed to identify ‘Klyon’ thanks, initially, to a video posted by Russian propagandist Yulia Chicherina on which Yahidne survivors recognized the man responsible for their daily torment. ‘Klyon’ was named as Semyon Aleksandrovich Solovov, b. 1987, a professional military man, married, with at least one daughter.
At all stages of their investigation, the Suspilne team passed on information received to the Ukrainian enforcement bodies.
On 7 July 2025, the Chernihiv District Court in Chernihiv oblast found Semyon Solovov [‘Klyon’] guilty of committing a war crime at Yahidne and sentenced him to 12 years’ imprisonment. The sentence, was, unfortunately, passed after a trial in absentia, with the only chance, at present, of ensuring that Solovov actually serves this sentence is if he can be caught in Ukraine or, perhaps, in a European country.
Although it was Solovov / ‘Klyon’ who normally decided if people would be let outside for a few minutes, etc., he was, apparently, the most junior of the Russian invaders, both in age and in rank.
It was only recently that the journalists finally succeeded in identifying the commander of the 228th Motor Rifle Regiment, as Aleksei Aleksandrovich Zhukov. It was he who was known to the hostages by his nom de guerre as ‘Spider’ [‘Паук’] and Suspilne’s new film is entitled ‘Spider and the Others Unpunished’. Although it is not possible to say with any certainty whether Zhukov had received orders from above to take the residents hostage, the key point is that he was the commanding officer. Although residents who survived the 27 days of hell generally recount that Zhukov was not as brutal as Solovov, he, undoubtedly, knew what the conditions were like in which Ukrainian civilians were being held hostage and what kind of treatment they were receiving from his direct subordinate. One of the women held there recalls that you could see that when he issued an order, ‘Klyon’ obeyed. He, therefore, bears full responsibility, and should also have been well aware that it is a war crime to use people as human shields.
Worth noting also that one of the main reasons for the difficulty in identifying the men and their regiment was that the 228th Regiment left no documents, photos or videos in Yahidne. It is not known whether these were destroyed in the last days of their occupation, but it does appear that they knew they had a lot to hide.
It is telling, therefore, that the journalists were able to name Zhukov finally because of information about ‘thanks’ that he had received from Russian leader Vladimir Putin. In the Spring of 2025 , they came upon an old Russian propaganda Telegram channel congratulating Aleksei Aleksandrovich Zhukov with receiving a thank you from the ‘chief military commander’, i.e. Putin back in 2023.
The document identified Zhukov as having, while still a lieutenant colonel, “led his 228th motorized rifle regiment into Ukraine”. The report, typically, claimed that, under his command, the regiment had “liberated” populated areas near Chernihiv and Kharkiv.
That report told the journalists that Zhukov (b. 1984) had been wounded in Kherson oblast in October 2022. From the information they have since obtained, Zhukov, who had also fought in Syria, does not seem to have returned to active combat. He received a military honour for his part in Russia’s military aggression in Syria, and several for his part in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. These included an ‘order for bravery’; a medal ‘for services to the fatherland’ and a medal ‘for courage’, as well as promotion to the rank of lieutenant.
Putin, it should be said, has a long track record, for showering with ‘military honours’ men suspected of war crimes in Ukraine. In April 2022, as more and more details emerged of the horrific torture, rapes and killings (as well as looting and other crimes) against civilians in Bucha, Putin issued a decree honouring the very 64th Motor Rifle Brigade believed to be behind many of the crimes. The presidential decree talked of “mass heroism and daring, tenacity and courage”
In May 2024, Putin handed Chalym Chuldum-ool ‘the star of a hero of Russia’. Chuldum-ool is a senior officer of the 55th motor rifle brigade which, in March 2022, rounded up the residents of Yahidne and forced them into the school basement, while living in their homes. Even if he and his brigade did not play a direct role in the hell that the residents endured, they would certainly have known that they were held in a place that was far too small and lacking in ventilation for so many people.
Naming the perpetrators is a long way from holding them to account for the war crimes committed, and the Suspilne journalists are not alone in wondering who will be held accountable and when. Such investigations and the criminal proceedings which can follow are, still vital, even where there is little hope that the perpetrators will soon face real punishment. Ben Hodges, retired US General and former commander of the US Army in Europe, is surely right in stressing the importance of publicly naming each of them and showing their photos. Each perpetrator should be aware that the evidence is there, and that they can be held to answer.
