Chechen

Ruslan Arsajev has seen quite a few wars already. He’s a born fighter, he says, scion of a long line of Chechen fighters. One of his brothers was once a member of the Chechen government; another took part in an infamous plane hijacking in 2001. Arsajev, who refers to himself simply as "Chechen," can generally be found where there’s trouble and strife. If given the choice, he prefers to fight against the Russians. Director Beata Bubenets followed Arsajev during the Ukrainian crisis of 2014. As a volunteer soldier, he protected the demonstrators in Kiev before going east to the Donbass region, where pro-Russian separatists were fighting against government troops. Chechen is an intimate observation of this strange, displaced mercenary, whose soft side comes out in his constant search for true