Budyonnovsk Hospital Hostage Crisis - Hostage Crisis

Hostage Crisis

Major Sabotage Attacks
in Post-Soviet Russia
  • Bold indicates attacks resulting in over 50 deaths
  • 1995: Budyonnovsk
  • 1996: Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye
  • 1999: Vladikavkaz
  • Russian apartment bombings'
  • 2002: Kaspiysk bombing
  • Moscow crisis
  • Grozny
  • 2003: Znamenskoye bombing
  • Tushino
  • Stavropol bombing
  • Red Square bombing
  • 2004: Moscow Metro bombing 1
  • Grozny Dynamo stadium
  • Moscow Metro bombing 2
  • Aircraft bombings
  • Beslan crisis
  • 2006: Cherkizovsky Market, Moscow
  • 2008: Vladikavkaz
  • 2009: Nazran
  • Nevsky Express
  • 2010: Moscow metro bombing 3
  • Kizlyar
  • Vladikavkaz
  • 2011: Domodedovo Airport bombing
  • Part of the First Chechen War
  • Invasion of Dagestan (1999)
  • Second Chechen War and North Caucasus Insurgency

Basayev issued an ultimatum, threatening to kill the hostages unless his demands were met. These included an end to the First Chechen War, and direct negotiations by Russia with the Chechen regime. Also, Basayev demanded that the Russian authorities bring reporters to the scene and allow them to enter the Chechen position in the hospital. Russian president Boris Yeltsin immediately vowed to do everything possible to free the hostages, denouncing the attack as "unprecedented in cynicism and cruelty."

At about 8 PM on June 15, the Chechens killed a hostage. When the reporters did not arrive at the arranged time, five other hostages were shot to death on Basayev's order. The New York Times quoted the hospital's chief doctor that "several of the Chechens had just grabbed five hostages at random and shot them to show the world they were serious in their demands that Russian troops leave their land."

But Security Minister Sergei Stepashin called the reports of the execution "a bluff."

After three days of siege, the Russian authorities ordered the security forces to retake the hospital compound. The forces employed were MVD police ("militsiya") and Internal Troops, along with spetsnaz (special forces) from the Federal Security Service (FSB), including the elite Alpha Group. The strike force attacked the hospital compound at dawn on the fourth day, meeting fierce resistance. After several hours of fighting in which many hostages were killed by crossfire, a local ceasefire was agreed on and 227 hostages were released; 61 others were freed by the Russian troops.

A second Russian attack on the hospital a few hours later also failed, and so did a third, resulting in even more casualties. The Russian authorities accused the Chechens of using the hostages as human shields. Yeltsin's human rights advisor Sergey Kovalyov described the scene: "In half an hour the hospital was burning, and it was not until the next morning that we found out what happened there as a result of this shooting. I saw with my own eyes pieces of human flesh stuck to the walls and the ceiling and burned corpses..."

Read more about this topic:  Budyonnovsk Hospital Hostage Crisis

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