Beslan school siege

• 1. Introduction

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  The Beslan school siege began on the 1st of September 2004, a day Russians call Knowledge Day, when children arrive at school dressed in their best clothes, carrying flowers. More than 1,100 people were taken hostage at School Number One in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia. Among them were 777 children. Three days later, 334 people were dead, 186 of them children. It remains the deadliest school shooting in recorded history.

  The questions at the heart of Beslan go far beyond what a group of armed men did to a gymnasium full of children. Who gave the orders when Russian forces stormed the building? Why did the fire start? Why were tanks and thermobaric rockets fired at a school full of hostages still alive inside? The answers, where they exist at all, are buried in classified documents, contradictory reports, and investigations that critics called cover-ups.

  Beslan sits near the intersection of some of the most complex grievances in the former Soviet space: the Chechen war, ethnic tensions between Ossetes and Ingush, and the political ambitions of a Kremlin that would use the massacre to justify sweeping changes to how Russia governed itself.

• 2. Knowledge Day

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  School Number One was one of seven schools in Beslan, a town of about 35,000 people. Its gymnasium, where nearly all the hostages would spend the next 52 hours, was a recent addition, measuring 10 metres wide and 25 metres long. It stood next to the district police station.

  There were early warning signs that were dismissed or ignored. Reports circulated that men disguised as repairmen had smuggled weapons and explosives into the school during July 2004. Authorities denied it. Several witnesses later testified they were forced by their captors to retrieve weapons from caches hidden inside the school walls. There were also claims that a sniper's nest had been set up on the sports-hall roof before the attack.

  Early on the 1st of September, a group of several dozen heavily armed militants left a forest encampment near the village of Psedakh in the Republic of Ingushetia. They wore green camouflage and black balaclava masks. Some wore explosive belts. On the road near the North Ossetian village of Khurikau, they stopped and captured an Ingush police officer, Major Sultan Gurazhev, taking his service weapon and badge. At 09:11 local time, they arrived at Beslan in a GAZelle police van and a GAZ-66 military truck.

  Because it was Knowledge Day, far more families than usual had gathered at the school. Some at first mistook the arriving men for Russian special forces running a security drill. Then the shooting began. Up to 50 people managed to flee. The rest, approximately 1,100, were herded into the gymnasium at gunpoint. The militants confiscated every mobile phone, threatening death to anyone who resisted. When a father named Ruslan Betrozov stood to calm the crowd and spoke in the local Ossetic language, a gunman walked over, waited for him to finish, and shot him in the head. Another father, Vadim Bolloyev, refused to kneel and was shot; he bled to death. Their bodies were dragged out, leaving a trail of blood visible in a video later made by the terrorists.

• 3. Inside the Gymnasium

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  The attackers mined the gymnasium with improvised explosive devices and strung tripwires throughout the building. They threatened to execute 50 hostages for every attacker killed by police, and 20 for every one wounded. They also threatened to blow up the school if government forces attacked.

  To prevent a gas assault like the one used in the 2002 Moscow theatre crisis, the militants immediately smashed the school's windows. They told the hostages they could not eat or drink until the president of North Ossetia came to negotiate. No food or water entered the building for the duration of the crisis.

  The gymnasium became almost unbearable. Many children stripped off clothing in the sweltering heat. Some hostages drank their own urine. Children fainted repeatedly; occasionally a militant would carry an unconscious child outside to pour water on them, then return them to the hall. The crying of children irritated the guards. On several occasions, mothers were told their children would be shot if the crying did not stop. Russian authorities later claimed the hostage-takers listened to German heavy metal band Rammstein on personal stereos to stay agitated. As day turned to night and stress compounded exhaustion, the guards became increasingly erratic and unpredictable. By the time the third day arrived, many of the surviving children were so weakened by thirst and heat that they could barely run.

• 4. Negotiations and Silences

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  The Russian government publicly announced it would not use force to rescue the hostages. A pediatrician named Leonid Roshal, whom the hostage-takers had specifically requested by name, led early negotiations. Roshal had helped secure the release of children during the 2002 Moscow theatre crisis; he had also advised security services before they stormed that theatre, for which he received the Hero of Russia award. A witness statement later revealed that Russian negotiators confused Roshal with a security official named Vladimir Rushailo.

  President Vladimir Putin said almost nothing. Only on the second day did he make his first public remark, during a meeting in Moscow with King Abdullah II of Jordan, pledging to save the lives of the hostages. It was his only statement until the day after the crisis ended. People gathered outside the school held signs reading "Putin! Release our children!" and "Putin! There are at least 800 hostages!" The government, meanwhile, publicly insisted there were only 354 people held inside, a number that reportedly further enraged the militants, who increased their mistreatment of captives.

  Behind this public posture ran a parallel operation. According to State Duma member Yuri Savelyev, a formal civilian headquarters appeared to seek a peaceful resolution while a secret FSB headquarters prepared an assault. The FSB excluded North Ossetia's president Alexander Dzasokhov from its own crisis command and threatened to arrest him if he attempted to reach the school.

  On the second day, former Ingushetia president Ruslan Aushev was allowed to enter the school and left with 11 nursing women and all 15 babies. The women's older children remained behind; one mother refused to leave and Aushev carried out her youngest child instead. Aushev also brought out a written note from Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who was not present in Beslan. The note demanded formal Chechen independence within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russian authorities publicly declared that no demands had been made. They said the videotape Aushev carried out was empty. Both claims were later proved false.

  On the morning of the third day, Ruslan Aushev, Dzasokhov, North Ossetia's parliament chairman Taymuraz Mamsurov, and First Deputy Chairman Izrail Totoonti made contact with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov. Totoonti said Maskhadov and his envoy Akhmed Zakayev were ready to fly to Beslan to negotiate. Maskhadov asked only for safe passage to the school. The assault began one hour after agreement on his arrival was reached. Totoonti also noted that journalists from Al Jazeera had offered to enter the school as hostages if it would help talks; they were told their services were not needed.

• 5. The Third Day

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  Around 13:00 on the 3rd of September, the militants allowed four emergency medical workers in two ambulances to remove bodies from the school grounds. At 13:03, as the paramedics approached, an explosion sounded inside the gymnasium. The militants opened fire on the paramedics, killing two. Twenty-two seconds later came a second explosion, described by witnesses as sounding strange. At 13:05, fire broke out on the gymnasium roof. The burning rafters and parts of the roof fell onto the hostages below. The entire roof eventually collapsed into the room. The flames reportedly killed approximately 160 people, more than half of all hostage fatalities.

  What caused the initial explosion remains fiercely contested. State Duma member Yuri Savelyev, the only combustion physics expert on the federal commission, concluded in his 280-page report that the first shot came from an RPO-A Shmel thermobaric rocket fired from the roof of a building at No. 37 School Lane, and that a second was fired from an RPG-27 grenade launcher at No. 41 on the same street. Empty shells and launchers were found on those rooftops. Parliamentary investigator Yuri Ivanov went further, contending the grenades were fired on the direct orders of President Putin. The official federal commission, led by Aleksandr Torshin, concluded in December 2006 that the militants had deliberately detonated their own bombs among the hostages.

  As the walls of the gymnasium came apart, some hostages escaped. Others were moved at gunpoint to the cafeteria on an upper floor and forced to stand at windows as human shields. Many were shot by troops positioned outside. Savelyev estimated that between 106 and 110 hostages died after being moved to the cafeteria.

  The forces deployed against the school included assault groups from the FSB, units of the Russian Army and Interior Ministry, T-72 tanks from Russia's 58th Army, BTR-80 armoured personnel carriers, armed helicopters, and at least one Mi-24 attack helicopter. Tank commander Viktor Kindeyev later testified that around 21:00, his tank fired one blank shot and six antipersonnel high-explosive shells on orders from the FSB. The use of at least three, and possibly as many as nine, Shmel thermobaric rockets was initially denied by the government and later confirmed. Russia classifies the Shmel as a flamethrower; Western military analysts describe it as a thermobaric weapon, noting it ignites the air and creates a massive pressure wave inside enclosed spaces.

  Firefighters, called by FSB head Valery Andreyev two hours after the fire started, were unprepared. One crew arrived on their own initiative but carried only 200 litres of water and could not connect to nearby hydrants. The first water truck arrived at 15:28; the second fire engine at 15:43. Hundreds of wounded survivors were driven to hospital in private cars because so few ambulances were available.

• 6. Who Were the Attackers

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  Nur-Pashi Kulayev, 23 years old, was the only attacker captured alive; he was found hiding under a truck. In his interrogation, he described the group's leadership and said the field commander Polkovnik had shot a militant and personally detonated two female suicide bombers after they objected to capturing children. Kulayev was sentenced to life in prison on the 26th of May 2006, then vanished into the Russian prison system. Russian officials said in 2007 that he was alive. In 2021 he reportedly submitted a request to review his conviction.

  The Torshin Report determined that 34 militants were involved in total, with 32 entering the school and 31 dying there. The Savelyev and Kesayev reports put the number at between 50 and 76, arguing that many escaped through the security cordon. Basayev, who called the operation "Nord-West" in allusion to the Moscow theatre crisis he had also organized, stated his own figures: 33 fighters, including 12 Chechen men, two Chechen women, nine Ingush, three Russians, two Arabs, two Ossetians, and one each from several other ethnicities.

  Forensic examination established that 21 of the hostage-takers had taken heroin, methamphetamine, and morphine in doses described as normally lethal. This was cited to explain how severely wounded fighters were able to keep fighting.

  Vladimir Khodov, nicknamed Abdullah, was a former student of School Number One itself. An ethnic Ossetian-Ukrainian from the village of Elkhotovo, he converted to Islam while in prison for rape. He was officially wanted for bomb attacks in Vladikavkaz yet had been living openly in his hometown for over a month before the attack. Basayev claimed Khodov was an FSB double agent, code-named Putnik, sent to infiltrate the militant network.

  On the 17th of September 2004, Basayev issued a written statement claiming responsibility for the attack and noting it had cost his organisation 8,000 euros. He also stated he had originally planned to seize a school in Moscow or Saint Petersburg, but lack of funds forced him to choose North Ossetia. Basayev said he was "cruelly mistaken" about the Kremlin's willingness to end the crisis by any means necessary, and called the outcome "a terrible tragedy", while adding he was planning more similar operations. Beslan was, however, the last major terrorist act in Russia until 2009. New Chechen leader Abdul-Halim Sadulayev made Basayev his deputy but banned hostage-taking and attacks specifically targeting civilians. Basayev died in Ingushetia in July 2006 under disputed circumstances.

• 7. Accountability and its Absence

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  By the 7th of September 2004, Russian officials confirmed 334 people had died. A 33-year-old librarian named Yelena Avdonina died on the 8th of December 2006 from a hematoma, and the city of Beslan counts 335 deaths on its official website. Locals reported that more than 200 of those killed showed burn injuries, and 100 or more appear to have been burned alive. Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer concluded on the 7th of September 2004 that 90% of surviving hostages had sustained injuries.

  Three local policemen were eventually put on trial, charged with negligence in failing to stop the attack. On the 30th of May 2007, a judge granted all three an amnesty. Dozens of local women responded by rioting in the courtroom, smashing windows, overturning furniture, and tearing down a Russian flag. No senior official faced criminal charges. Putin had personally promised the Mothers of Beslan group an objective investigation. On the 26th of December 2005, federal prosecutors declared that the authorities had made no mistakes.

  Savelyev's dissenting parliamentary report, published in August 2006 and running to 280 pages, concluded that Russian forces deliberately stormed the building using maximum force, firing rocket-propelled grenades without warning while negotiations were still apparently underway. In February 2007, Savelyev and fellow investigator Yuri Ivanov formally denounced the Torshin commission's findings as a fabrication and refused to sign its report.

  Politically, Putin moved swiftly. He signed legislation replacing the direct election of regional governors with a presidential appointment system. He argued this was necessary to prevent local economic clans from destabilising government and to create a unified executive chain of command that could respond to terrorism. The election system for the State Duma was also amended, eliminating single-mandate district seats. The Kremlin tightened its hold over Russian media and increased pressure on non-governmental organisations, particularly those receiving foreign funding. Independent member of parliament Vladimir Ryzhkov blamed the top leadership of Russia for the crisis. The European Union initially added its criticism. A Levada-Center opinion poll conducted on the 16th of September 2004 found that 58% of Russians supported stricter counterterrorism laws and the death penalty for terrorism.

• 8. Deeper Roots

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  The site chosen was not random. The Ossetes and Ingush carry a territorial dispute over the Prigorodny District that traces back to the Stalinist deportations of 1944 and was inflamed by the ethnic cleansing of Ingush by Ossetes in 1992-1993, in which the Russian military assisted. At the time of the Beslan attack, more than 40,000 Ingush refugees were living in tent camps in Ingushetia and Chechnya. The school gymnasium itself had been used in 1992 as a holding pen to round up Ingush during that earlier campaign of violence.

  For the Chechen fighters, Beslan held a different meaning. The town had served as a launch point for federal air raids into Chechnya. The attack was, in Basayev's framing, an act of revenge for the destruction of Chechen homes and families. When word spread that many children had been killed by a group that included Chechen fighters, the reaction inside Chechnya was one of shame. A spokesman for the Chechen independence movement said that a worse blow could not have been dealt to their cause, and that people around the world would now see Chechens as monsters.

  Maskhadov, the elected Chechen president who denied involvement and called the attack a blasphemy, was killed by Russian commandos in Chechnya on the 8th of March 2005. Putin had put a 10 million dollar bounty on Maskhadov, the same amount placed on Basayev, and compared negotiations with Maskhadov to appeasing Hitler.

  Of all who died in Beslan, one survivor's act of courage was formally remembered. A physical education teacher named Yanis Kanidis, a Caucasus Greek originally from Georgia, saved the lives of many children before dying in the siege. One of the new schools built in Beslan was subsequently named in his honour.