Are Sám Shevchenko, Samel Hydruskli or Samuel Hydenko the names of any of the suspects in the deadly March 22, 2024, concert hall attack in Moscow, Russia? No, that's not true: In the wake of mass shootings, naming "Sam Hyde" and variations of that name as a shooter is an often-recycled internet meme. It plays on the name of Sam Hyde, an American comedian and podcaster. Lead Stories could find no evidence that anyone with these three names was named as an attacker or a suspect.
The claims appeared three separate times with three different names in the aftermath of the attack. One version appeared in an Instagram post (archived here) where it was published on March 24, 2024. It read:
Breaking news 🚨One of the gun men in the Moscow terrorist attack in Russia is to believed to be an Islamist chechnya called Sám shevchenko.
These are what the posts looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Mar 25 14:04:28 2024 UTC)
The blond man on the left of the split image is Sam Hyde, a comedian who is falsely named as a suspect during tragic events.
Two other versions of this claim were seen on X, formerly Twitter. Here the names used are "Samel Hydruskli" (archived here) and "Samuel Hydenko" (archived here), respectively. The screenshots of the claims at the time of writing are below:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Mar 25 14:06:40 2024 UTC)
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Mar 25 14:07:12 2024 UTC)
Each social media post contained images, from a purported Ukrainian passport in one post to screengrabs from security camera and witness footage in the other two.
Lead Stories could not find any evidence that individuals named "Sám shevchenko", "Samel Hydruskli" or "Samuel Hydenko" were involved in the March 22, 2024, attack in Moscow, Russia (archived here).
A reverse image search of the bird's eye footage in the "Sám shevchenko" claim resulted in Lead Stories finding the original image. NBC labeled it as "Witness videos show chaos, gunshots in Moscow concert hall" (archived here). The link to the video has "expired" on NBC's website, but here is a live link from The Telegraph (archived here).
A second reverse image search (archived here) of the alleged footage "outside of the Moscow concert hall" in one of the X claims resulted in Lead Stories finding a similar image on a Bulgarian website from a 2016 article (archived here). The article was translated using Google Translate, and we did not find evidence of the name "Samel Hydruskli" in the article.
A final reverse image search (archived here) of the alleged Ukrainian passport did not yield any significant results corroborating the claim. One of the results was an X post including the passport with the caption: "The alleged ID of the Ukrainian saboteur who exploded when trying to plant an IED in DPR today. #UkraineConflict #UkraineRussiaCrisis." The date this post was made is unclear as the site can not be reached at the time of writing. The identity of the man pictured in the passport is also unknown. Here is a screenshot from the search:
(Source: Tineye screenshot taken on Mon Mar 25 15:52:49 2024 UTC)
On March 22, 2024, four men attacked a concert hall in Moscow, Russia, killing more than 130 people. The Basmanny District Court of Moscow named the suspects as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, according to an NBC article.
Other Lead Stories articles about the Moscow concert hall attack are here. Other Lead Stories articles on claims related to Sam Hyde are here.
