The trend initially came to prominence in 2015, when apology clips started emerging on social media or local state TV in the Russian republic of Chechnya in the North Caucasus.

Most of the videos showed people saying sorry for criticising Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

One featured a man apologising for being gay. Another featured a man wearing no trousers who had criticised the Chechen leader for singing a song called “President Putin is my best friend”.