Russian special forces storm the Dubrovka Theater

The Moscow theater hostage crisis, also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege, was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater on 23 October 2002 by 40 to 50 armed Chechens who claimed allegiance to the Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya. They took 850 hostages and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. The siege was officially led by Movsar Barayev.

Due to the disposition of the theater, special forces would have had to fight through 30 metres (100 feet) of corridor and attack up a well defended staircase, before they could reach the hall in which the hostages were held. The terrorists also had numerous explosives, with the most powerful in the center of the auditorium, that, if detonated, could have brought down the ceiling and caused in excess of 80 percent casualties. After a two-and-a-half day siege and the execution of two female hostages, Spetsnaz operators from Federal Security Service (FSB) Alpha and Vega Groups, supported by a Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) SOBR unit, pumped an undisclosed chemical agent into the building's ventilation system and raided it.[1]

All 40 of the attackers were killed, with no casualties among Spetsnaz; about 130 hostages died, including nine foreigners, due to adverse reactions to the gas. All but two of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by the toxic substance pumped into the theater to subdue the militants.[4][5] The use of the gas was widely condemned as heavy-handed, but the American and British governments deemed Russia's actions justifiable. Physicians in Moscow condemned the refusal to disclose the identity of the gas that prevented them from saving more lives. Some reports said the drug naloxone was successfully used to save some hostages.

Видео Russian special forces storm the Dubrovka Theater канала Gyulai Ádám