Inspector Reto Flückiger (Stefan Gubser) sees from the hotel balcony how a man falls to his death from a higher floor. What means a new case for him professionally has far-reaching consequences privately: the police interrogation uncovers his affair with a married woman (Brigitte Beyeler). As far as the case is concerned, he and his colleague Liz Ritschard (Delia Mayer) are initially groping in the dark. One thing is clear: the death of the investigative journalist is connected to his research and reports on the atrocities of the Chechen wars. A suspected war criminal comes into focus: Ramzan Khaskhanov (Jevgenij Sitochin), who has started a new life under a false name in Switzerland with Ena Abaev (Natalia Bobyleva).
Not only are the Lucerne investigators and the Russian authorities on his heels, but also a Chechen hitman (Vladimir Korneev) and Khaskhanov's niece Nura (Yelena Tronina) from Grozny. The young woman has made the long journey with a pistol in her luggage to avenge her mother. She blames her uncle for the widow's suicide bombing after her husband's death. However, Nura's revenge plan draws her twin brother Nurali Balsiger (Joel Basman), who was adopted by Swiss people as a toddler, into the dangerous cause. Because even the hunted Khaskhanov shrinks from nothing.
Hundreds of thousands of civilian victims in Chechnya, desperate acts of revenge by "black widows" and waves of terror with bloody attacks in Russia - with such images the wars in the Caucasus have burned themselves into memory. The Swiss "Tatort: Kriegssplitter" is about the terrible legacy: the Lucerne investigative duo Stefan Gubser and Delia Mayer aka Flückiger and Ritschard get caught up in a revenge campaign in which good can hardly be distinguished from evil. The television crime thriller by director Tobias Ineichen with elements of a political thriller shows how the seeds of violence sprout again in the generation of children and war orphans.