After the news of the rebels' defeat in Saint Petersburg reached Ukraine, the radical Decembrist officers incited the Chernigov infantry regiment against the government.

Uncertain about their strategy, rebel leaders camped in Motovilovka, while the government seized the initiative and mobilized its forces in pursuit.

The rebels dropped their initial plans of taking over Kiev or Brusilov and marched south to Polohy[2] and back to their starting point at Trylisy.

According to Hugh Seton-Watson, it was "the first and the last political revolt by Army officers" in Russia: Nicholas I and his successors eradicated liberalism in the troops and secured their unconditional loyalty.

In the same year it split with the Northern Decembrists of Saint Petersburg and assumed the title of Southern Society but by 1823 Pestel's influence brought the two groups back together.

Second Army commander Hans Karl von Diebitsch, the imperial government and tsar Alexander I himself received reliable but fragmented information on the scope of conspiracy in the troops.

These villages, from Trylisy in the west to Ustimivka in south-east, form a continuous band of settlements along Kamyanka, and are connected by roads to Bila Tserkva in the south and Fastivets, Mytnytsia, Vasylkiv and Kiev in the north.

This helped the Decembrists in agitating enlisted men one by one without raising suspicion, but in the decisive hour prevented them from assembling the whole force in short time.

Company commanders Veniamin Solovyov, Anastasy Kuzmin and Mikhail Schepilo were active members of the United Slavs.

December 26] Sergey Muravyov-Apostol, Pestel's second-in-command in the Southern Society, left his station in Vasylkiv to meet general Loggin Rot and Decembrist Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin, in Zhitomir.

The two conspirators were put back by Artamon Muravyov's [ru] refusal to join the revolt with his Aktyrka Regiment.

[7][8] Muravyov's associates Kuzmin, Schepilo, Solovyov and Sukhinov realized that now the ring narrowed around themselves and settled for an open revolt.

Soldiers of Kuzmin's 5th company of the Chernigov Regiment stationed in Trylisy supported their officers, and on the following day Muravyov-Apostol assumed command and declared an open revolt.

The rebels now counted one thousand men in strength, complete with regimental banner, purse and even their own chaplain Daniel Keyser but without field artillery.

Muravyov issued orders to march west to Brusyliv, away from Kiev, to unite with "allied" Akhtyrka and Alexapol regiments.

In Motovylivka Muravyov-Amursky learnt that the Decemrists of Alexapol Regiment refused to join the revolt, which made further westward movement useless.

He finally settled on Bila Tserkva, were his lieutenant Vadkovsky apparently had influence over fellow officers of the 17th Jägers Regiment.

The scouts brought back fearful news that the 17th Jägers relocated to Skvira, a full day's march west of Bila Tserkva.

Halfway between Ustimivka and Kovalivka the rebels marched head-on into government troops led by Friedrich Caspar von Geismar.

In 1828 one of the Chernigov Regiment veterans, Ivan Sukhinov, was indicted in an attempted prison riot and committed suicide.

January 22] 1826 a commission based in Bila Tserkva reviewed 987 individual cases of Chernigov Regiment soldiers and found 51 of them innocent.

[22] Chaplain father Daniel was detained in a monastery for two months and then stripped of his nobility and clerical title and sent for hard work to Babruysk fortress.