March 8, 2022, was a truly tragic day for the residents of Desnyanka village in the Chernihiv region. At that time, Russian servicemen received a repulse from the Ukrainian Armed Forces for the first time during the occupation of the village. As a way to protect themselves from further shelling, they decided to adopt the tactic of shielding themselves with local residents as ‘human shields.’ They tried to find people, who cooperated with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and therefore brutally tortured and killed civilians from Desnyanka. In the village, a sniper shot and killed people. Buildings were chaotically shelled, and once, they aimed a tank barrel at a local resident’s house and hit it directly; a woman who was in a nearby shelter died. That day, Russian servicemen shot at a car carrying three adults and a child. It is even scary to imagine that all these events happened on a single day, while the occupation lasted for more than a month.
The content of this article may be traumatic and disturbing, as the publication describes war crimes involving various forms of violence.
‘Human Shields’ of Desnyanka
In the early morning of the first day of the full-scale war, explosions were already heard in the small village of Desnyanka, located in the Chernihiv region. The village is approximately 60 km from the border with the Republic of Belarus, from where, in particular, Russian troops began to enter on February 24, 2022. Near the village, there is a railway and important highways, which made Desnyanka one of the strategically attractive settlements for Russian forces during their advance towards Chernihiv and in the direction of the capital.
The Russians entered the village in late February or early March; witnesses cite different dates. They reported that tanks moved first, followed by wheeled vehicles, traveling in columns. Initially, they positioned themselves on the outskirts of the village, on the territory of the educational and scientific site ‘Desnyanka,’ where agronomy students of ‘Chernihiv Polytechnic’ university previously studied. On March 8, 2022, this territory was shelled by Ukrainian forces, and the commander of a Russian tank unit was killed. After this, the Russians decided to move into the village and massively settled in the homes of local residents. Thus, they became neighbors of Desnyanka residents for almost a month and effectively used them as ‘human shields.’
Horrific tortures and killings of people: laid out in a star shape and beaten with a sledgehammer
After the accurate shelling of their positions on March 8, Russian soldiers began searching for people who, in their opinion, might have cooperated with the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Three local men were taken for interrogation. One of them returned with signs of torture, while the other two were later found dead.
Documentarians from the Educational House learned that there were approximately 5-6 Russian soldiers at the homestead where the men were tortured. They laid the prisoners on the ground in a star shape, one after another, searched them, and checked for tattoos. Then they called a senior commander, who ordered a heavy sledgehammer to be brought. Russian servicemen asked in Russian: ‘To whom did you betray us?’ If the men remained silent or gave unexpected answers, they were beaten with a sledgehammer from head to toe. The commander himself delivered the blows. They moved linearly, striking with an interval of 4-5 seconds: question — blow. Each of the men received a total of approximately 40-50 sledgehammer blows. The beating lasted several hours.
In the evening, the men were thrown into a basement, located separately from the house, approximately 3×3 m in area. When they were brought in, Mykola Karpenko was hit in the face and his nose was broken. The men were given old clothes, a bucket for a toilet, and one dry ration, which the men could not open due to exhaustion and beatings. The temperature in the basement was about 0℃.
The next day, on the morning of March 9, 2022, Mykola Karpenko and Oleksandr Zakharenko were taken from the basement by Russian military personnel. Another man was held until lunch, then released.
The bodies of Mykola Karpenko and Oleksandr Zakharenko were accidentally found on May 26, 2022, in the village of Shestovytsia, Chernihiv region. A man went for a walk with his dog, which found the bodies buried in garbage. According to the witness, both men had their collarbones and heads shot through: Mykola Karpenko had five bullets in his head, and Oleksandr Zakharenko had three.
The man who managed to survive had broken ribs, his head was smashed with a sledgehammer on the crown, his body was covered in bruises, and there were traces of torture everywhere, especially on his hands and feet.
In 2024, law enforcement agencies managed to identify one of the Russian servicemen who imprisoned and tortured the men. He has been served with a notice of suspicion, which states that he is Kubekov Ermek Bibatyrovych, a serviceman of the 90th Tank Brigade of the Russian Federation.
The Murder of Oleksandr Radchenko
On the morning of March 8, 2022, the Radchenko family woke up to the sound of ‘Grad’ volleys fired from Desnianka village towards Chernihiv city. Four men, including Oleksandr Radchenko, went out to smoke on the porch after breakfast, just as they did every other day. A muffled shot rang out and someone shouted: ‘Sasha has been killed, get down on the floor!’ The bullet hit him directly in the head.
The witness believes that a Russian sniper shot, as the shot was aimed at the temple. Assumes that the bullet was explosive. The sound of the shot was a single, muffled one, and there was no exit wound. Blood flowed from the temple, and the pulse lasted for about another minute. Then Oleksandr’s life ended. He died on his wife’s knees; she didn’t hide but immediately crawled to Oleksandr…
Panicking, family members tried to call the hospital, although there was an understanding that there was no chance to save him. The ambulance refused to come, and it was also impossible to evacuate the deceased man from the village because active hostilities were ongoing around. The body had to be buried; on the second floor of the shed, there was a wooden floor — they ripped it up and made a coffin. They dug a grave right in the shed and buried Oleksandr Radchenko on March 11, 2022.
They turned the tank’s barrel towards the house and hit it directly
On March 8, there was shelling, during which the woman and her husband hid in the cellar. When the explosions subsided, the husband went to the neighbor across the road to check on her. Olga Tkachenko’s house stood opposite the hangars where Russian soldiers were hiding their equipment. When the shooting stopped, the occupiers turned the tank’s barrel towards her house and hit it directly. Why the Russian military did this still remains a mystery. The woman was in the shelter, the husband was at the neighbor’s, and there was no one in the house. The shell destroyed 80% of the house, shrapnel flew in different directions, piercing the cellar door where Olga Tkachenko was. She died from shrapnel wounds.
Russian military personnel did not allow the woman to be buried in the cemetery. People dug a grave in the yard, hammered together a box from planks instead of a coffin, and buried her like that. After de-occupation, the body was moved to the cemetery in the village of Heshchyn.
Injuries to people
On the morning of March 8, 2022, Russian soldiers were checking houses. One of them saw a woman who looked out the window at that moment and opened fire with an automatic rifle. Bullets wounded her head, tearing her skin. The husband tried to provide medical aid to his wife, but the wounds were extensive, and 4 towels quickly became soaked with blood. He cut her hair and went to a military hospital set up by the Russians, which was located near their house. The doctor agreed to help — he treated the wound and left hydrogen peroxide and bandages for dressings. The next day, he came again and changed the dressing. The woman later recovered.
On this day, a 17-year-old boy also came under fire, who, from a house ignited by a shell hit, tried to carry out his paralyzed grandmother. Mines fell on the garden and the house itself. That’s when documents, money, clothes, and much more burned down. The young man turned off the gas and lowered his paralyzed grandmother into the cellar. It was then that he was wounded in the right shoulder, thigh, left shin, and abdomen. The ambulance refused to come, neighbors tried to help the boy, but the bleeding did not stop, and a fever began. A neighbor went to the Russian military to ask for a medic’s help. The military medic treated the wounds and checked if there were any shrapnel left in the body. Fortunately, there wasn’t.
All interviewed witnesses reported that in the village of Desnyanka, Russian servicemen indiscriminately fired at houses and opened fire on the civilian population, making it very dangerous to move around the streets in the village.
Shooting of a car
A car was driving towards the village of Desnyanka. An ordinary white car, which was in no way marked as military. A civilian man was driving, accompanied by two women and a child. They posed no threat to the RF military, but were nevertheless caught under shelling.
As Ukrainian law enforcement later established, Denys Romanovych Kolchakov, a serviceman of the 74th Brigade of the Russian Federation, was the shooter. He fired at least eight bullets at the car and wounded the driver, who miraculously survived. On May 31, 2024, a court in Chernihiv sentenced him in absentia to eleven years of imprisonment.
No statute of limitations
More than two and a half years have passed since the de-occupation. Residents of Desnianka still recall those events with horror, especially March 8-9 and some other dates that are forever etched in their memory. It is worth noting that the medic remained true to the ‘Hippocratic Oath’ and did not refuse aid to local civilians. However, not all Russian servicemen adhered to the rules and customs of warfare stipulated by international law. The names of at least two Russian servicemen who committed war crimes are now known; one has been served with a notice of suspicion, and the other has received a verdict. For now, it is in absentia, but these crimes have no statute of limitations, which means there is still a chance for justice. Even if over time, at least some of the war criminals must end up in prison.
The project ‘Documentation of War Crimes in Chernihiv Region’ is implemented by the Educational Human Rights House — Chernihiv with the financial support of the International Renaissance Foundation. The material represents the position of the authors and the Educational House and does not necessarily reflect the position of the International Renaissance Foundation.
Author: Viktoriia Hlamazda