Movie footage shared with false claim that it shows ‘Ukrainian soldier murdering civilians in Chechnya’

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.

Title: Movie footage shared with false claim that it shows ‘Ukrainian soldier murdering civilians in Chechnya’
URL: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.324U8GR
Publisher: AFP
Date published: March 15, 2022
Description:

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.