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Sunday, May 17, 2026

Movie footage shared with false claim that it shows 'Ukrainian soldier murdering civilians in Chechnya' - AFP Factcheck

A video has been viewed tens of thousands of times after it was shared in social media posts with a claim that it shows "a Ukrainian soldier killing Muslim Chechens during Ukraine's attack on Chechnya". However, the claim is false. The clip was actually taken from the opening scene of a French feature film called "The Search", which shows the execution of a Chechen family by Russian soldiers. The 2014 movie was set against the backdrop of the Russian-Chechen war in 1999. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was Russia — not Ukraine — that fought wars in Chechnya.

The video has been viewed more than 120,000 times after it was posted on Facebook here on March 8, 2022.

The one-minute, 52-second footage shows a soldier shooting an elderly man and then a woman following an argument.

The Urdu-language caption on the post translates as: "Time has turned the tables on the oppressor. When Ukraine attacked Chechnya, they killed an elderly Muslim man in cold blood when he was reciting verses of Koran. What goes around, comes around.”

Chechnya is a republic in the southwestern part of Russia.

The same video has been viewed more than 29,000 times after it was shared on Facebook here, here and here with similar claims.

The video also circulated with the claim in English on Twitter and on Facebook.

The posts appear to be blaming Ukraine by presenting it as the purported aggressor guilty of murdering civilians in Chechnya and suggesting it is now paying the price for those...



Read Full Story: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.324U8GR