During the Battle of the Dnieper, Shchetinin was a senior lieutenant and was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his reported leadership of a company in capturing a village against numerically superior German forces.

[1][2] Shchetinin was born on 21 March 1921 in the village of Mikhayevsky in what is now the Vozhegodsky District of Vologda Oblast[3] to a peasant family of Russian ethnicity.

In March 1942, he graduated from the Vladimir Military Infantry School and became a machine gun platoon commander.

Before the main forces of the regiment arrived, his company reportedly repulsed four German counterattacks and then captured the village of Solvyovo.

[1][2][5][7][8] Shchetinin graduated from advanced officer training courses in 1946; he then worked in the district military commissariat of Vologda Oblast.