1/15 OSINT: Open Source Intelligence investigation & the use of facial recognition. Trigger to the investigation: ➡️ Russian propaganda Military video posted on Telegram by what seems to be a Chechen Muslim fighter. #ukraine #islamicfighters #chechen #osint #Telegram #facialrec

Geolocating the vid is possible, long hours of work needed, we can start by trying to ID who this individual is. Using US and Russian facial recognition software brings various results, as well as which has good facial recognition capabilities. 3/15

Paid Russian Facial Recognition software (Findclone) brings some interesting results, we can see the ressemblance. What does this tell us? He now becomes HV (high value) and a POI (Person of Interest), his face on various accounts means he is well-known and has cronies/fans. 4/15

Opening one of the VK accounts where his face was detected. We can probably assume this person is close to Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov. 5/15

Confirmation is needed in order to continue down this path. Microsoft Azure can be used to compare faces and confirm. Confirmation level is good (even though he has aged), *note that I added the beard pattern (triangle). 6/15

Another post was found on VK glorifying him, note that we can now be certain that he is a person of interest and importance through his medals and awards. 7/15

US (Paid) Software PimEyes brings some hugely important results. It was then easy to pivot from there and find thousands of photos and online material on this individual. *note the red beret and how close he is to Kadyrov. 8/15

A news articles on Chechnya Today shows he was in the Czech Republic (EU) in September 2020 for parachute training with the Russian special forces. It mentions the Zhukov Brigade. 9/15

He can be seen training with a red beret. Found the same the logo of the spetnaz (Russian SF), which confirms he is part of the Russian special forces and trains soldiers. 10/15

At this point, no news article or photo had identified him or mentioned his name. On one photo that was found, an @instagram account is mentioned. (@ za_kra_mezhidov_87_95), this account seems to be his and has over 293K followers. 11/15

One photo was found on his @Instagram account with a name on. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) was conducted. 12/15

We now have a name, Хусейн Межидов (Hussein Mezhidov) 13/15

Translated Text: Decision to appoint Hussein Mezhidov as the commander of the 249th separate special motorized battalion "South" of the 46th OBRON of the VNG RF. He headed the training center of SOBR Terek of the Russian Federation Federal Service for the Chechen Republic. 14/15

Here he is on @YouTube in Ukraine a few days ago: which also confirms he is currently in Ukraine and progressing with his troops. 15/15

This is the telegram link to the video and translation:

Apologies regarding the statement about parachute training in Czech Republic. Google Translation didn’t provide & Should have also double-checked using bing translator. Thanks to a report from CZ, went deeper and found the place they did the training:

Adding this, although Ukraine declared that they killed him, this was posted today by what seems to be another account belonging to Hussein Mezhidov, he is still alive: #osint #socmint #ukraine #facialrecognition #chechens

LKL [Last Known Location] on video of Mezhidov is close to Hostomel Airport, meaning high probability he was killed during this battle: , he was standing at these coordinates: 50.593222, 30.225611 (See below how it was done)

The first step was viewing the video and looking for anything that can be flagged. It was quite easy to figure out that behind him, it was a Gas station. The information was that Chechens were in Hostomel, regardless of being at the National Guard base or at Antonov Airport.

A simple Google search was carried out for Gas Stations in Hostomel. Yellow and Black squares found meaning we could be onto something. Went on streeview and found that everything matches.