Chechclear
Chechclear is an infamous video circulated over the internet depicting the gruesome decapitation death of a Russian soldier, believed to be Yevgeny Rodionov, at the hands of Chechen rebels in either 1996 or 1999. In the video, his throat is cut with a large knife as one attacker holds his head down with a boot, and then his head is sawn off as both of his executioners talk to each other in Chechen. The video has become famous for being circulated on the internet and as one of the most gruesome videos available, sometimes giving viewers nausea or nightmares. Especially disconcerting is the audio of 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 although this longer video has never been widely circulated on the internet. Supposedly the Russian soldiers were offered a chance to convert to Islam to avoid execution but refused.
There is also confusion surrounding the executioner of the Russian soldier. He has been identified as both Ruslan Khaikhoroyev or Tamirlane (TАМЕРЛАН ХАСАЕВ). Tamirlane was caught and sentenced to life in prison by Russia 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 take on a nom de guerre instead of using their real names.
Infamy
Chechclear became famous after being posted to Ogrish and then spread into peer-to-peer networks, where it was often mislabled so as to "surprise" a viewer by having them think that they were about to watch something else that the false title suggested. Along with the Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl videos, Chechclear is one of the most widely viewed decapitation films on the internet.
References
Russian News Footage: