French Film Clip Viral as 'Ukrainian Army Killing Civilians in Chechen War'

The claim states Ukrainian army killed civilians in Chechnya war and is linked to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A 1:52 minute disturbing video of a man seemingly dressed in military attire mocking some persons, before killing a man and a woman, is being shared claiming that the Ukrainian Army had killed civilians during the Chechen war.

The claim further adds that now fighters from Chechnya along with Russian Army have entered Ukraine to "take revenge". This is being shared in the backdrop of Russia's war on Ukraine since 24 February.

However, we found that the video is a part from a 2014 French film named 'The Search', directed by Michel Hazanavicius.

CLAIM

The video is being shared along with the claim that reads, "As a reminder, this is what the Ukrainian army did when they entered the land of Chechnya and executed an old man who was reading Surat Al-Fatihah with his wife without mercy.

Today the verse is reversed and Chechnya enters with the Russian army to take revenge on what the Ukrainians did to them. Truth about Ukrainians.(sic)"

(Trigger Warning: The videos in the links below may be distressing to some. Viewer's discretion is advised.)

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Several social media users have shared the video along with the same claim on Facebook and Twitter and the archived links can be seen here, here and here.

The claim is viral on Facebook.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

WHAT WE FOUND

With the help of InVID, a video verification tool, we extracted several keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them.

A Google reverse search result led us a Twitter thread from 10 March that read that the clip is from a "2014 Franco-Georgian movie "Search" (directed by Michel Hazanavicius), dedicated to the events of the second Chechen War".

An archive of the tweet can be seen here. 

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

Taking cue from here, we searched for the film on YouTube and found it published by a user in 2020.

The viral part can be seen in the film from 3:48-5:40 minutes.

Screengrab from YouTube.

(Source: YouTube/Screenshot)

The film is a story of an NGO worker who forms a special relationship with a young boy in war-torn Chechnya, directed by Oscar-winning French director Michel Hazanavicius. The film is also listed on IMDb.

Russia had invaded Chechnya, a tiny, oil-rich province in Russia’s North Caucasus region in 1994 and the war lasted till 1996. This came to be known as the first Chechen War.

The second Chechen War began in 1999 and went on till 2000, when Russian troops had captured Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, according to a timeline by BBC.

Meanwhile, in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia's Chechnya region, who is also Putin's ally, had said that Chechen fighters had been deployed to Ukraine, according to news agency Reuters.

Clearly, a clip from a film is being falsely shared as "Ukrainian Army killing civilians in Chechen War."

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)