Assisted by Chicherina: Journalists expose occupant who tormented residents of Yahidne

Journalists have identified the Russian occupier involved in the brutal abuse of civilians from the village of Yahidne in the Chernihiv region during the village's occupation. On the orders of a Russian captain with the call sign 'Klion,' almost 400 villagers were held in a cramped basement in a school for 27 days in inhumane conditions, and ten captives of the invaders never left the basement alive.

For a long time, no information about Klion could be found. However, journalists then came across a video of a concert by Russian propagandist singer Yuliia Chicherina near Kreminna in the Luhansk region, in which the Yagidne residents recognized their executioner. Suspilne reports on the course and results of the investigation, which lasted more than a year.

For more than a year, Suspilne journalists have been searching for the occupier responsible for the ill-treatment of civilians in the village of Yagidne in the Chernihiv region. Local residents said that it was on the command of the invader with the call sign 'Klion' that the Russians held 366 villagers, including children, in a cramped basement for 27 days. The invaders used them as human shields, covering their headquarters with people.

Then, ten villagers died in the stampede, suffocation, without access to medicine or even the opportunity to lie down.

"The war crime in Yagidne was investigated by journalists of the Suspilne Investigations Department in July 2022. In October of that year, they released an investigative documentary called 'Diary of a Survivor,' in which they identified the Russian military unit that held people in the school basement in Yahidne as the 228th Regiment. However, it was not possible to identify the Russian officer with the call sign 'Klion' at that time," Suspilne writes.

However, in June 2023, the investigation unexpectedly gained traction. The journalists came across a video published by Chicherina of her speech near Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast in February 2023, "to her countrymen from the Urals" (the 228th Regiment is based in Yekaterinburg, Russia). Among the occupiers in the video, Yahidne residents recognized their executioner.

Afterward, thanks to merged Russian databases, journalists identified 'Klion.'

'Solovov Semyon Aleksandrovich, born in 1987. A graduate of the Kolomna Higher Artillery Command School, holds the rank of captain. He is married and has at least one daughter,' the investigators said.

They also contacted the occupier, creating a 'legend' and ensuring that he was still engaged in fighting in Ukraine, now in the Luhansk region. However, when it came to Yahidne, Solovov immediately backtracked and began to insist that he had never been to the Chernihiv region, claiming that Klion had been eliminated in a village near Kreminna. At the same time, according to the invader, the Russian occupiers in Yahidne were supposedly 'saving' local residents.

The journalists handed over the collected data to the SSU Office in Chernihiv region, which is investigating the Russians' crime in Yahidne. The Service is currently collecting evidence to serve the occupier a notice of suspicion under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of the laws and customs of war).

Earlier, it became known that another Russian agent in the Donetsk region was sentenced. He guided Russian missiles at Sloviansk, and for this, the occupiers' fixer will spend the next 12 years behind bars.

Before that, another traitor went on trial in the Kharkiv region. A collaborator from Balakliya guarded the occupiers during the occupation of the city, and now the former Ukrainian police officer has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for working for the enemy.

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