Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye Hostage Crisis - Siege of Pervomayskoye

Siege of Pervomayskoye

The rebels then headed in the direction of Chechnya in a column of 11 buses and two trucks, but they were stopped when a Russian attack helicopter suddenly opened fire on their convoy as it approached the border between the two republics. A group of 37 Novosibirsk OMON policemen, who were escorting the convoy and were caught in the crossfire, surrendered to the Chechens. The rebels rushed for cover in the nearby village of Pervomayskoye (also spelled Pervomayskoe, Pervomaiskoye or Pervomaiskoe), where they installed the hostages in a local school and a mosque and put the captured policemen to work digging trenches. According to Itar-Tass, the Chechens seized an additional 100 hostages from among the population of the village. Some of the civilians were reportedly given weapons while some of the captive policemen joined the gunmen.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin spoke on national TV on details of the operation against the hostage-takers, famously demonstrating through gestures how "38 snipers" were supposed to cover the village and shoot all hostage takers. Yeltsin's remarks were later ridiculed to the point where it was denied he ever made them. Before launching the assault, Russian officials incorrectly stated that the rebels had "hanged six Russian soldiers". For the next three days Russian special forces tried to break into the village, supported by heavy weapons. They admitted at least 12 killed, including Colonel Andrei Krestyaninov, commander of the Moscow SOBR. Cold and hungry, they described the fighting as "hell". On January 12, 1996, the rebels freed the women and children; they said they would release the rest if four named respected Russian officials would take their place (politicians Grigory Yavlinsky and Yegor Gaidar quickly agreed, but retired Generals Boris Gromov and Alexander Lebed refused).

After the assault attempts failed, Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov and Federal Security Service (FSB) Director General Mikhail Barsukov falsely declared that Raduyev's men had "executed all of the hostages". Russian commanders then ordered their forces to open fire on the village with tanks and multiple rocket launchers. FSB Major General Alexander Mikhailov said that the rebels "had shot or hanged all or most" of the hostages, and commanders said they now planned to "flatten" Pervomayskoye. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin also said that no hostages remained alive. Nevertheless, hostages were still alive and appealing desperately to the Russian security forces to cease firing on the village; a New York Times correspondent reported that the Russians were "firing into Pervomaskoye at the rate of one a minute the same Grad missiles they used to largely destroy the Chechen capital Grozny when the conflict began." The fighting reportedly killed 16 hostages. General Barsukov later said, laughing, that "the usage of the Grad multiple rocket launchers was mainly psychological," and claimed that although three launchers were deployed, only one was used. Russian troops attacking the village included the Nalchik FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, whose ad-hoc unit came under friendly fire from Grad rockets, resulting in the death of two of his colleagues.

During the days when Russian troops stormed Pervomayskoye, a large crowd of people, the relatives of the hostages, gathered near checkpoints located 10 kilometers from the settlement, as Dagestani police would not allow them any closer. These people stood in silence and watched how Russian troops bombarded with rocket launchers, other artillery, helicopter gunships and combat jets, the settlement where their relatives were supposedly being held, Russian authorities sought to minimize coverage of the crisis by keeping correspondents away from the scene, confiscating equipment, using guard dogs and firing warning shots. They injured several, including a cameraman from ABC television and a The Christian Science Monitor correspondent, (one reporter was fired upon by soldiers at a Russian military checkpoint). Russian forces also turned away a long line of relief workers, including representatives of Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross.