On August 9, Yaroslav Shekhovtsov, a member of the Wagner PMC, was sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony for the murder of his fellow soldiers. During the trial, Shekhovtsov claimed that he escaped from the riot along with two other men and shot them out of fear that they would kill him. This information was shared with "7x7" by a journalist from Voronezh.
The Voronezh Regional Court delivered the verdict for 26-year-old Yaroslav Shekhovtsov, a native of Kyrgyzstan, finding him guilty of murdering two individuals.
The bodies of two Wagner PMC members, along with machine guns, grenades, and ammunition, were discovered near the Voronezh-Luhansk highway, close to the settlement of Oskino in Voronezh Oblast. Local media initially reported that Shekhovtsov shot them on June 24, 2023, for refusing to participate in the coup. However, a journalist from Voronezh who attended the hearings told "7x7" that Shekhovtsov had deserted the riot himself.
In court, Shekhovtsov testified that he and two fellow soldiers had strayed from the column during Evgeniy Prigozhin’s coup on June 24 to avoid participating in "unlawful activities." The three mercenaries intended to reach the nearest locality and surrender. However, Shekhovtsov allegedly overheard his comrades saying, "We should finish the boss off; he’ll report us," and killed them out of fear for his life.
The deceased were identified as Ivan Tsaregorodtsev and Denis Abramov, both from Nizhny Novgorod.
Tsaregorodtsev’s relatives received a document certifying his "heroic death while fulfilling his military duties" during the battles for Artemovsk. He was also allegedly awarded the Order of Courage posthumously.
However, the mother and son of the deceased are aware of the true circumstances of his death, as they demanded 2 million rubles in compensation for moral damages from Shekhovtsov. They were eventually awarded only 750,000 rubles.