June 21st 2004 – Chechen wreckers attempted a large-scale attack on Ingushetia. Police and prison buildings were attacked as well as the headquarters of Nazransk’s border patrol; attacks were made on Karabulak, Sleptzovskaya and Orjonikidzevskaya villages. About twenty administrative buildings and military objects were attacked. 88 people died, most of them police and FSB officers, 117 people were wounded.
August 26th 2004 – crash of two Tu-134 and Tu-154 planes going to Volgograd and Sochi. 89 people were victims of the crashes.
August 29th 2004 - presidential elections in Chechnya. The ministry of Interior Alu Alkhanov won. Over 73% of the republic’s citizens participating in the elections voted for him. Some candidates were removed from the elections under various pretexts or were convinced not to participate.
August 31st 2004 – explosion in Moscow near Rizhskaya station. 10 people died, 51 were wounded.
September 1st 2004 – capture of hostages in School Number 1 of Beslan in North Ossetia. According to Beslan’s teachers’ committee there were over 1200 hostages. According to the official data of the Prosecutor General 331 hostages died in Beslan including 172 children.
March 8th 2005 – the second president of the Ichkeria republic Aslan Maskhadov was killed in the Tolstoy-Yurt town.
According to the official news counting from 1999, 36 terrorist acts in Russia took the lives of 1 397 people and 1 750 were wounded.
So according to the shyest estimates the stubborn desire of V. V. Putin and his group to keep the Chechens in the RF cost about 32 thousand lives. Again imagine these hecatombs of dead bodies laid out on Ichkeria’s long suffering land, no, on Moscow’s sidewalks. Blue, yellow, torn apart…
THE KILLING
On October 23rd 2002 I was in Saratov’s central prison, in the 3rd section for those charged with heavy crimes: this evening, as usual, I was brought late from court. My cellmates left me food; I was heating my supper on the oven when the TV program was interrupted with a special announcement. It was (9:05PM. The announcer said that terrorists have captured the Theater Center on Dubrovka in Moscow, which was presenting the Nord-Ost musical. Around one thousand people together with the viewers, the actors and the employees found themselves hostages.
A group of about 50 terrorists arrived to the building on small buses. They were armed with guns, hand grenades and explosive devices. There were about ten women among them calling themselves widows of those dead for Ichkeria’s freedom. The armed people declared themselves fighters of the 29th division; as it later turned out the unit was headed by the field commander Movsar Barayev, nephew of the famous Chechen militant Arbi Barayev, killed in the summer of 2001.
In the second act, when a plane was supposed to appear on stage (the climax) armed Chechens wearing black overalls and camouflage, most of them in masks came out on the scene. Actually they have not only appeared on the scene but from all the doors. Let us follow the chronology of the events.
October 23rd
At about 10PM a police cordon is set around the building.
10:26PM President Putin was informed about the capture.
At 11PM the plan “Storm” was put in action; according to it all police and FSB officers must arrive to their sections. The security of the buildings where power bodies are located as well as vitally important objects of the city’s infrastructure is reinforced. The mayor Luzhkov arrived to the building as well as highly ranked officials from the police, the FSB, the Prosecutor General and the Ministry of emergency situations. Operational headquarters were organized. They were headed by the deputy director of the FSB, Vladimir Pronichev. SOBR, OMON, Sofrin’s brigade, FSB sections Alfa and Vimpel and other special units were called to Dubrovka.
By midnight the traffic on the neighboring streets is completely stopped. The police cordoned off the journalists and the crowds of idlers. The operational headquarters attempt to contact the terrorists. By midnight without setting any condition the terrorists have released some dozens of hostages, among whom children, women, Muslims and some foreign citizens, in particular Georgians. Ten people escaped through the windows of secondary rooms.
At midnight the Caucasus-Center agency published information saying that the taking of hostages was done by a unit of suicide bombers under the leadership of Movsar Barayev. The Chechens have only one request – “stop the war and begin the immediate withdrawal of the Russian occupation troops from Chechnya.” “The Chechen mujahideen have come to Moscow in order to die and not to survive,” the agency cited commander Barayev. Besides the agency affirmed that the militants have shot the FSB officer Olga Romanova, 26 years old who tried to get into the building. (Later it turned out that the woman was blind drunk.)
At 12:44 an midnight the terrorists released a hostage so that he could tell their demands to the operational headquarters. They were the same: stop the war in Chechnya. If a raid is attempted they will blow up the building.
1:32AM several gunshots are heard near the Center on Dubrovka.
At 1:36AM Patrushev informed Putin that sections of the FSB Center of Special Assignment as well as the special section of the police and the Defense ministry were ready for action. Evacuators remove all the cars parked on Dubrovskaya Street. They are preparing to raid.
At 2:00AM October 24th the State Duma deputy from Chechnya Aslanbek Aslakhanov had a telephone conversation with Movsar Barayev. The negotiations did not yield results, but the sides agreed to reestablish the contact at 4:00.
At 3:00AM the terrorists liberate another 17 hostages without setting any conditions. In an official statement the FSB said that it does not intend to raid the building.
3:10AM. It became known that there are 64 foreigners among the hostages (4 from the USA, 7 from Germany, 3 from the UK, 23 from Ukraine, etc.)
3:35AM. The terrorists voluntarily released 15 children from the building. They were released in small groups.
4:00AM. A short telephone contact between Aslakhanov and Barayev. Barayev repeats: “Let the troops out. We are suicide bombers; we came here to die.” The deputy Aslakhanov is not given plenary powers. The contact ends. An hour later Aslakhanov contacts Barayev again. The conversation is even shorter. Without result.
4:04AM. President Putin canceled his trip to Germany and Portugal.
6:05AM. There is some shooting in the building.
7:40AM. The terrorists started to write down the names of the hostages.
08:00AM. The Health Ministry says that there is no dead or wounded among the hostages.
09:00AM. An explosion detonated in the building. A small one. The origin of the explosion is not found.
09:16AM. Information appeared that the RF government proposed the terrorists to go to some other country.
09:20AM. One of the terrorists contacted News.ru. He refuted the information that the militants asked a huge sum of money from the authorities in exchange for the hostages. “I want to remind you: we don’t need money; we need freedom. Because some of your channels said we asked for money. We don’t ask; if we need it, we’ll take it.”
09: 25AM. Another ten trucks with military men of the domestic troops arrive to the Center on Dubrovka.
09:30AM. The terrorists promise to release all the captured foreigners at noon.
10:20AM. ORT and REN-TV journalists are allowed inside the cordoned zone.