LYUDMILA PUTINA was at home watching television when she received a telephone call from her husband on 23 October 2002. It was, she recalls, shortly after 9 p.m. and she was surprised that he would call her at this hour. He rarely reached his office before noon but worked late, often until well past midnight, and this would have been his most intensive work period. He was not a phone-homer at the best of times, but at this hour? There had to be something wrong.
Putin was calling his wife to let her know he was unlikely to get home at all that night; something had come up. He would explain later. Lyudmila did not have to wait until later; she saw it on the news. A Moscow theatre was under siege, inside it as many as a thousand people were being held hostage by heavily armed terrorists. This was the sort of event to bring out the best in her husband. No shaking hands with people he was obliged to meet but had no wish to; no soothing the brows of ministers who found themselves out of their depth; just action, action, action. Decisions would have to be taken, decisions that could cost lives. Lyudmila knew that Vladimir would be in his element.
Putin approved each and every detail of the plan with the coolness that had become his trademark. Even when he was warned that every one of the 41 offenders – including the young women among their number – would be shot in the head, whether or not rendered unconscious by the gas, he showed no emotion.
There would be many deaths in the Dubrovska theatre, which stood less than three miles from where he was sitting in his Kremlin office, but that was unavoidable. This damaging siege had to be brought to a swift conclusion and his Spetsnaz (commandos) were just the men to carry out the grim task.
This was the dirty side of his job, but he would not shirk it. He could not expect – and would not have wanted – to spend his entire time in office uttering platitudes and shaking hands with visiting dignitaries. And, after all, had he not himself threatened to shoot dead those Germans who stormed his KGB offices in Dresden when the Berlin Wall came down?
Dr Leonid Roshal, whom the bandits permitted to enter the theatre centre, noted that ropes and cables were hanging from the windows in preparation for a possible escape. He also noted trip wires, grenades, Kalashnikovs and packets of marijuana lying about on the floor in addition to the ‘cable-way’ window escape route.
The bandits made only one demand: the telephone was not to be cut off. If it was, then the first corpses would come flying out of the window.
Putin had been working at the desk in his Kremlin office, studying documents prepared ahead of his visit to Germany for talks with Chancellor Schroeder, when first reports of the theatre siege reached him.
ONE OF THE PEOPLE in the theatre’s auditorium at the time of the attack was a Russian police general on whose head the Chechens had put a price. The audience also included tourists from Britain, America, Germany, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands; they were all there to enjoy the performance of a romantic musical Nord-Ost. The Chechens had not come for music and love, they had brought two 45 kg bombs with them, one of which they set up in the centre of row 15. They attached other explosive devices to pillars supporting the balcony.
DURING THE ENTIRE 57 hours that the siege was to last, no one was allowed to go out to the toilets. The orchestra pit became a huge stinking lavatory. There was no food (no toilet paper, either), just a few cold drinks.
The actions of the terrorists were led by Movsar Barayev, the 24-year-old nephew of Arbi Barayev, a notorious terrorist, who had made a fortune from kidnappings, in which he demanded a million dollars for the release of each of his hostages. Three months after Arbi Barayev had been killed, Movsar became head of a unit in the so-called Islamic Special Purpose Regiment (ISPR), and began planning the theatre attack, aided by Shamil Basayev.
The 41 terrorists had joined up, one at a time, at an unoccupied, unnumbered and rather sinister Moscow mansion on the corner of Vspolny and Granatny streets. From there they had set off for the theatre in a truck. Soon after they began the siege, young Barayev sent the media a video recording of a somewhat incoherent appeal: ‘Each people has the right to its own destiny. Russia has deprived the Chechens of this right, and today we want to take back the rights which Allah gave to us as he gave them to all other peoples…’
According to one of Putin’s assistants, who dashed into the President’s office after the video had been delivered, he was calmly reading Barayev’s declaration, which went on: ‘Allah gave us the right to freedom, the right to determine our own fate. The Russian occupiers have drowned our country in the blood of our children and we yearn for a just solution. No one knows that the innocent are perishing in Chechnya: sheikhs, women, children, defenceless people. Therefore we have chosen this method, for the sake of the freedom of the Chechen people. It doesn’t matter where we die, so we have decided to die in Moscow.’
A number of people managed to escape from the building before the terrorists occupied it completely. Twenty-six-year-old Olga Romanova, in a fit of rage, slipped through the police encirclement outside the building and ran back inside, where she began arguing with the kidnappers, shouting to those taken prisoner that they should not be afraid of them. Barayev’s men took her out of the hall and shot her dead in the foyer. This left the hostages in no doubt that their captors meant deadly business.
YOUNG hockey players practicing for the Golden Puck tournament final found an unexpected player in their midst – Vladimir Putin.
THROUGHOUT THE CRISIS, Putin remained at his desk, surviving on sandwiches and soup and never once allowing his emotions to show through, although deep down he was seething with anger at those politicians who had used the situation to their own advantage, taking the opportunity, as Putin saw it, to ‘promote themselves on blood’. This was no time for political spin; and at some point, Putin knew, the theatre would have to be stormed.
MEANWHILE, A NUMBER of extraordinary events took place. Risking his life, the Sunday Times correspondent Mark Francetti entered the occupied building and conducted a 20-minute interview with Barayev; the journalist reported that while some of the terrorists rested, others stayed close by the detonators. ‘If the Russians try to take us by storm, the whole place will be blown sky high!’ was the clear message. Their aim was not to live through it, but to force Russian troops to end the war at the cost of their own lives. There would be no mercy for anyone.
Another man, who succeeded in getting into the building to plead for the release of his captive son, was taken aside and shot dead as coldbloodedly as the drunken teenage girl had been.
PUTIN ANNOUNCED that he was willing to make contact with the terrorists on condition they lay down their arms. He also promised to spare their lives if they released the hostages (there is no death penalty in Russia). At the same time he worked speedily through an attack plan produced by the Spetsnaz. An attack using gas, they said, was the only way; if stun-grenades were used, the terrorists would have time to detonate their bombs.
Using monitoring devices fitted into the external walls of the building’s cellars and roof, the Spetsnaz kept track of the terrorist’s positions. The information gained was scrupulously transmitted to the attack team. Just before 5 a.m. on the Saturday they moved into their starting positions under cover of darkness. Putin personally gave the signal for the operation to begin.
And then it did begin. Gas was silently pumped into the building through a recently installed ventilation system. There was no warning. The gas acted so quickly that many of the unsuspecting inside lost consciousness after taking just a few breaths of it.
One of the hostages, Anna Andrianova, a Moskovskaya Pravda correspondent, managed to place a call to the Moscow Echo radio station, and her desperate plea was heard on the air that morning: ‘I have the impression that our forces have begun their operation. Lads, don’t leave us in the lurch, give us a chance, if you possibly can, we beg you…’
AND THEN THE Spetsnaz appeared. They stormed the building through the drains, through the roof – from every possible entrance. Their first task was to shoot all the terrorists ‘within one minute’ (Putin himself had specified the time frame) in a bid to ensure that none of them would have time to detonate their explosives.
By the grace of God, not one of the terrorists charged with exploding the bombs was in the hall when the operation began. Barayev and two of his closest aides had gone to their operations room to watch television coverage of their siege; Barayev, clutching a half-empty bottle of cognac, received a bullet in the temple; several of the female suicide bombers were shot as they ran up steps, trying to reach the balcony. The shooting lasted precisely one minute, just as Putin had decreed it should.
All the terrorists were killed. One, using a rope escape, tried to jump out into the street, but was shot by a female FSB officer. Not one of the hostages died at the hands of the Spetsnaz. The effects of the gas, however, caused the deaths of 129 people, many of whom perished because of poor medical assistance. Some choked on their own tongues, some were asphyxiated, and others simply never regained consciousness. Many more victims might have survived had the capital’s authorities made better preparation for their rescue. Only 80 ambulances had been assigned to take potentially hundreds of people to hospital. In the confusion the bodies of those who had died were laid out on the road alongside the sick and dying, unprotected from the falling snow. It is a mercy that 85 per cent of the hostages were saved.
Putin was seen on television, visiting a hospital and wearing a white medical coat, talking sympathetically to survivors. What the TV cameras had missed, though, was the President working ceaselessly at his Kremlin desk throughout the crisis. He had not paused, even to sleep.
SOME DAYS AFTER the Dubrovka affair, a number of groups of terrorists were wiped out simultaneously in battles close to Grozny. Putin declared that the measures taken ‘were commensurate with the threat’. In response, Aslan Maskhadov, the leader of the separatists, made what he described as ‘an unconditional offer’ for peace negotiations. Putin did not dignify this with a reply, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs declared that such a call for Russia to enter into negotiations was like asking Europe to begin a dialogue with Osama bin Laden.
In a television address on the morning of 26 October Putin justified the use of ‘special means’, declaring that it had ‘succeeded in doing the almost impossible – saving the lives of hundreds of people’; fundamentally it proved, he added, that ‘Russia can never be brought to its knees’. In the wake of the infamous Moscow theatre siege, Putin thanked the Spetsnaz forces and the citizens of Russia for their ‘bravery’, as well as the world community for its support in the struggle against ‘the common enemy’. He asked forgiveness for not being able to save more hostages and declared the following Monday a day of mourning for the fallen; furthermore, he pledged to continue the fight against international terrorism. Three days later Putin made another statement: ‘Russia will respond with measures appropriate to the threat to the Russian Federation: wherever terrorists, crime organisers and their ideological and financial mentors are to be found. I stress, wherever they are to be found.’
FRANCE HAD BEEN most vocal in its condemnation of the Russian retaliation in Chechnya. In America, George Bush’s protests were somewhat muted after Putin conveyed to him Russian intelligence that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda was behind the Chechen uprising and that Movsar Barayev had close links with the master terrorist responsible for the 9/11 attack on New York’s Twin Towers. A hero to his own followers, Barayev had been responsible for a number of notorious kidnappings, including the capture of four British Telecom workers whom his late uncle, Arbi Barayev, beheaded when al-Qaeda offered $20 million more than the ransom put up by BT and Granger Telecom, providing they were killed instead of released. When Bush called Putin to assure him Americans stood in solidarity with the people of Russia, the Republican leader also promised to consider adding the Chechen separatists to Washington’s list of terrorists, an action which was subsequently implemented.
ONE WEEK AFTER the deadly siege, the Danish government annoyed the Kremlin by allowing the Chechen separatist Ahmed Zakayev to stage his World Chechen Congress in Copenhagen. Accusing Zakayev of involvement in the Dubrovka siege the Russians said he was at the Congress as the envoy of Aslan Maskhadov, whom they described as Chechnya’s ‘rebel leader’, and for good measure reminded the world that Zakayev was wanted in Russia on a warrant filed with Interpol for charges which included ‘more than 300 murders between 1995 and 1997’.
Zakayev, an actor and former Chechen minister, had been staying in London for most of the year as the guest of actress and human rights campaigner Vanessa Redgrave, following a car accident in which he was injured during the siege of Grozny.
The Russians regarded Zakayev as Terrorist Public Enemy No. 1, so the Danes detained him despite his protests that neither he nor any of the Chechen leaders had had anything to do with the bloodbath at the Dubrovka. After a month in prison, he was released when the Danes decided that the Russians had insufficient evidence to justify his extradition.
Upon his release, Zakayev flew to Britain, where he was promptly arrested again on the same Interpol warrant at Heathrow Airport and held until Redgrave and Boris Berezovsky – who made no secret of his sympathy for the rebels – posted more than £60,000 bail for him. Describing Zakayev as a man of peace, Redgrave told CNN she was sure that he would die if Britain granted the Russian request for his extradition, which the Danes had boldly refused: ‘If he was sent back he would be tortured, he would be killed in some jail,’ she said, adding: ‘He’s not a rebel, he’s an elected leader. He was elected in elections in January 1997, which were supervised and endorsed by the OSCE [Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe] and later endorsed by President Yeltsin.’
While all this was going on, Putin took measures to curtail the negative publicity some aspects of the Nord-Ost operation were getting at home. The lower house of the Duma approved tight restrictions on future press coverage of terrorism-related incidents, at the same time rejecting a proposal by the liberal Union of Right Forces party that an independent investigation be held into Putin’s handling of the siege.
And just in case they failed to get the message, Chechens living in Moscow were subjected to increased police harassment. In a clear move to protect Maskhadov’s political credentials, Shamil Basayev posted a statement on his website claiming responsibility for the siege, resigning all official positions within the self-proclaimed Chechen government and apologising to his so-called President for not informing him of the planned raid. The moves were dismissed in Moscow as mere political manoeuvring and Putin’s spokesman said they had recordings of wiretapped phone conversations which proved that Maskhadov knew of the plans in advance. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories abounded.
Anti-Putin writer Anna Politkovskaya interviewed Khanpasha Terkibayev, a Chechen political intermediary, and concluded that Terkibayev must have been among the hostage-takers, because he seemed ‘evasive’ when she tackled him about allegations that he was an agent provocateur. Such – unproven – allegations led some theorists to believe that terrorists had been allowed into Moscow with their substantial arsenal of weapons by the FSB, who had even suggested the theatre as a possible target. They surmised that such a highly provocative act would give Putin the freedom to step up his war in Chechnya. They also suggested that there had been more than 41 terrorists that night, and that as many as 10 might have been allowed to escape; those who could not move were shot rather than be allowed to ‘talk’. Khanpasha Terkibayev later died in a car crash.
Putin flew into a rage when Vanessa Redgrave – seen by some as an anti-Semite supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and of the Guantanamo Bay detainees – went into graphic detail about the fate she believed her friend Zakayev would suffer if he were returned to Moscow. In an article for The Guardian she wrote: ‘There is widespread and increasing use of torture in Russia. This grows alongside the mounting brutality of the Russian government’s war against the Chechen people.
‘Suspects in pre-trial detention all over Russia are subject to slonik – a gas mask, or sometimes a plastic bag, is placed over the suspect’s head, the air supply is cut off and sometimes tear gas is pumped into the mask or bag. The victim loses consciousness or vomits. Many other forms of torture are used to extract confessions, which under Russian law can be signed without the presence of a lawyer and are accepted by the courts,’ she claimed.
Her words did not go to waste. The following year Zakayev, who had specialised in Shakespearean roles during his acting career, was granted political asylum in the UK – just as Berezovsky had been – and promptly styled himself Prime Minister of the Chechen Government in Exile.
Putin was appalled that such a thing could be allowed to happen in a country with which he had established a healthy and friendly working relationship. In March 2006 Redgrave inadvertently played into the Russian leader’s hands when she remarked in an interview with US broadcast journalist Amy Goodman: ‘I don’t know of a single government that actually abides by international human rights law, not one, including my own. In fact, they violate these laws in the most despicable and obscene way, I would say.’