[1] Upon Makhno's return from Russia in July 1918, Karetnyk and his brother attended a meeting with other local anarchists in order to figure out how they could acquire weapons.

[3] They resolved to carry out surprise attacks against the local authorities, seizing 44,000 rubles in a bank robbery at Zherebets, and increasingly harassing the occupying Austro-Hungarian Army.

[9] When the first Bolshevik-Makhnovist alliance was broken in June 1919, Karetnyk was among the anarchists of Huliaipole that accompanied Makhno's small detachment in a retreat to right-bank Ukraine.

[16] When talks between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks resumed in August 1920, Dmitri Popov and Semen Karetnyk were two of the insurgent command staff that argued against the proposed alliance.

[17] On 6 October, Semen Karetnyk, Dmitri Popov and Viktor Bilash met the Bolshevik negotiator at Starobilsk to sign their provisional agreement.

The insurgents initially hesitated to go forward with this as they suspected it was a trap, but crossed into Crimea in the early morning of 7 November, while being peppered by heavy machine gun fire.

[25] Karetnyk's detachment was then ordered to take up camp at Saky, where they were subsequently surrounded by the 52nd Rifle Division, 3rd Cavalry Corps and 2nd Latvian Brigade, preventing the insurgents from leaving Crimea.

[29] While en route to a Red Army command meeting, Karetnyk and his chief of staff Petro Havrylenko were arrested in Melitopol and executed by firing squad.