Video of Schoolchildren Reenacting Execution By Soviet Soldiers Goes Viral

A video that appears to show young Kazakh children recreating an execution of a protester has gone viral after being shared online.

The disturbing clip, believed to have first been uploaded onto Telegram on December 19, starts with several children wearing Soviet-era-style military uniforms inside a large room with a Kazakhstan flag near a large screen.

As the clip played out, two children dressed as soldiers and armed with mock rifles march up to a boy wearing a shirt that was made to look as if it was stained with blood.

They are then seen marching the boy in the mock bloodied shirt to another child also wearing a military uniform in the middle of the room.

As the child is being marched to the center of the room one of the children holding a toy firearm prods him with the "muzzle" of the rifle.

Upon reaching the center of the room, the child in the mock bloodied shirt is made to kneel in front of one of the children wearing a uniform before the pair shout at one another.

Seconds later, the child in the uniform bangs the table and flips over the chair he was sitting on before ordering the two toy gun-wielding children to take the boy in the bloodied shirt away to his mock execution.

The boy then talks into the camera for several seconds before the two children with the toy guns lead him to the back of the room and hold out the mock firearms as if they are about to shoot.

Seconds later, the children pull the triggers on the toys (which in turn make a shooting sound) then on cue to the boy in the fake bloody shirt falls over as if he had been executed.

During the clip, an adult could be seen overseeing the reenactment from the side of the room.

The sinister clip was widely shared on Russian-language social media accounts last week and has since been viewed more than 418,000 times on Twitter.

After being uploaded onto social media, many responded with bewilderment to what they had just watched.

While it is unknown when the video was recorded, several Russian-language social media accounts said it had been shared around the time of Kazakhstan's 30-year independence anniversary.

Kazakhstan became the last country to formally leave the Soviet Union on December 16, 1991.

Independent media outlet Readovka said in a report translated from Russian via Google the scene had been "depicting the execution of participants in the riots on December 17-18, 1986, in Alma-Ata, which in modern Kazakhstan are referred to as December uprising."

The protests were sparked after Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev forced the resignation of ethnic Kazakh Dinmukhamed Kunayev from the position as the Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan.

Kunayev was replaced by ethnic Russian Gennadiy Kolin following allegations of cronyism and mismanagement.

Clashes erupted between students and militia units for several days after Kunayev's resignation.