Chechclear is an infamous video that circulated over the internet. The video depicted a gruesome decapitation of a Russian soldier at the hands of Chechen rebels in 1996. In the video, his throat is cut with a large knife as one attacker holds his head down with his boot. His throat is not cut from the front, but a large serrated bowie knife is stabbed into the side of his neck behind the Adams apple and, is violently sawed outward towards the front. The video has become famous from being circulated on the internet and it has been considered one of the most gruesome videos available, sometimes giving viewers nausea or nightmares. Especially disconcerting is the audio. The screams of the soldier change to an inhuman pitch as his vocal chords are severed. Also the gurgling sound the soldier makes as he is dying, which many viewers are said to remember more than the video component itself.

Origin

There is some confusion surrounding the circumstances under which the execution took place. The Russian soldier depicted in the video was supposedly captured when 200 Chechen fighters attacked a village in Dagestan and only 13 Russian soldiers were available for the defense of the village. The Russians fired upon the Chechen attackers but were overwhelmed and they hid among the civilian population. Six Russian soldiers did not manage to hide and were captured and executed, the other five were executed at the same time and presumably also videotaped.

There is also confusion surrounding the executioner of the Russian soldier. He has been identified as both Ruslan Khaikhoroyev and Tamirlane. Tamirlane was caught and sentenced to life in prison by the Russian court while Ruslan Khaikhoroyev was killed in a shootout with other Chechen rebels in 1999. The confusion comes from the fact that there have been many beheading videos of Russian soldiers by Chechen rebels, and so it is difficult to track each perpetrator to the individual video. It is also compounded by the fact that Chechen rebels often like to use a nom de guerre instead of using their real names.

Trivia

Along with the Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl videos, Chechclear is one of the most widely viewed decapitation films on the internet.