The Moscow Siege

Theatre of Horrors
As theatregoers entered Moscow’s Dubrovka theatre on 23rd October 2002, little did they know that they would be participating in their own deadly drama.

In the next 57 hours 922 individuals were to undergo the most terrifying ordeal imaginable: shortly after the beginning of the second act of sell-out musical, ‘Nord-Ost’, they were taken hostage by masked Chechen gunmen, wielding Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades. The commotion was such that some members of the audience even thought that the masked man jumping on to the stage with a machine gun was part of the play.

Clearly not part of the musical were the 18 women who mingled amongst the audience; dressed all in black, with veils bearing Islamic slogans, these female accomplices held Makarov pistols and their belts and pockets bulged with explosives and hand grenades.

An Explosive Situation
Half an hour after the siege started the Chechen terrorists shot dead a woman who walked into the auditorium; they believed that she was from the Russian security services. As the 25-year-old leader of the 50-odd rebels - Movsar Barayev - appeared, the hostages’ fate seemed sealed. He said: “You are all my hostages now. You’re going to be staying here for a long time. Our demand is that the Chechen war be stopped.” He said that if at the end of a week their demands had still not been met, all the hostages would be killed.

Three-day Siege
For all their threats, Barayev and his fellow terrorists seemed keen to enter some kind of dialogue with the Russians. The first negotiator to enter the building was Josef Kabzon, an MP not unpopular amongst Chechens. His first visit did at least secure the release of three of the youngest children. The Russians even risked sending a TV crew into a building to film an interview with Barayev. However, the rebels’ demands were not stated clearly and the situation turned into a deadlock. Conditions for the remaining hostages were deteriorating rapidly. Food was running out, and since two girls had escaped from the toilet window, the rebels were forcing their captives to use the orchestra pit as a lavatory.

Underground Tactics
Outside the theatre, military opposition to the siege was mounting. Putin had called in 200 men from the elite anti-terrorist squad – the Alpha Force – to enter the building with help from an amateur group called the Diggers – experts in underground Moscow. By entering sewers and narrow underground shafts the Alphas had arrived under the theatre, where they set up listening devices. When the Chechens were reported to have killed two people inside the theatre, the order was given to storm the building.

Death Toll
Half an hour before the assault, troops blew a hole in a theatre wall and pumped in sleeping gas to incapacitate the terrorists. The Alpha teams burst through from their tunnel underneath the theatre. Disorientated by the gas and the speed of the attack, the rebels never gave their female accomplices the order to blow up the theatre. The gun battle was decisive, killing all the 50 or so Chechens and injuring only one Alpha. Tragically, of the 922 theatregoers taken hostage, 129 died.