Limonov vs. Putin

by Edward Limonov

  2:27PM Mozdok. Airport. The FSB director Patrushev arrives from Moscow. However from Mozdok he does not go to the anti-crisis headquarters. Nobody will see him there in the next two days. Still, there are lots of high officials there in the headquarters. General Vasily Andreyev, president Dzasokhov, parliament speaker Taymuraz Mamsurov, State Duma deputies Rogozin and Markelov, deputy Prosecutor General Fredinsky. Later that day Patrushev’s deputies Pronichev and Anisimov arrive from Moscow, as well as the head of the FSB Center of special assignment general Alexander Tikhonov, commanding the groups Alpha and Vimpel. And also the FSB head of the South Federal District, general Kaloyev. (Notice that general Valery Andreyev commands his own bosses!) However in reality it is not chaos, as various journalists who investigated Beslan’s tragedy interpret it. The methodic of covering up responsibility is in play. Here is what Novaya Gazeta writes (issue 64, 2005): “At the same time, the witnesses who were present in the headquarters say that Moscow’s FSB agents and employees of the presidential administration created their own parallel headquarters, where neither Andreyev nor even Dzasokhov could go. The role of Pronichev and Anisimov in the administration of the Counter-terrorist headquarters is not clear to this day. The materials of the criminal case do not contain their interrogations as direct witnesses.”

  But who are these representatives of the presidential administration? Here they are in the report of the North Ossetian parliamentary commission. I cite Novaya Gazeta again: “According to the North Ossetian commission it is the representatives of the federal center who bear responsibility for the deliberately false information about the hostages: the employee of the presidential administration, deputy press-secretary of the RF president Dmitry Peskov and the employee of Moscow’s State Broadcasting Company office Vasilyev. According to the testimony of the vice-speaker (of the Ossetian parliament) Kesayev on September 2nd he was called to the operational headquarters to talk about informing the population about the real quantity of hostages in the school. The Moscovites presented themselves as employees of the presidential administration’s information department and asked him not to disclose any information that contradicts the official version.” Actually, this is a criminal offense. But who cares. The North Ossetian commission turned out to be much more honest than Torshin’s commission.

  Ossetia’s president Dzasokhov was finally interrogated. He “admits several times that in essence all the decisions in Beslan were made by Patrushev’s deputies: the FSB generals Pronichev, Anisimov and Tikhonov.” Pronichev, first deputy director of FSB, a general-colonel, already has the necessary experience of “liberating” hostages, in particular in the Theater Center on Dubrovka. With gas. When they killed 129 hostages, by official count. They killed them and thus liberated them.

  The North Ossetian commission is convinced that the real leaders of the Counter-terrorist operation were high FSB officials. The commission harshly criticizes the fact that the criminal case does not contain the interrogations of the main participants of the counter-terrorist operation: generals Pronichev, Anisimov and Tikhonov and the FSB director Patrushev.

  September 1st. Beslan. End of the day. The terrorists wait in vain. Their demands to bring Dzasokhov, Ziazikov, Aslakhanov and Roshal (rather Rushailo) were not executed, supposedly “because there was a real danger they might be killed”. Ziazikov, Ingushetia’s president spent the three days of the tragedy in Moscow’s President Hotel, supposedly it was Putin who “left him out of the game”. No signals come in from Putin’s advisor on North Caucasus. Also, according to the federal law about terrorism the demands of the militants about the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya cannot be subject to negotiations as they threaten the base of the constitutional order and the wholeness of the Russsian Federation.

  Instead, the operational headquarters proposed the militants to exchange the hostages for the suspects arrested in Inhusgetia for the attack on Nazran. Ikarus buses were prepared in case the militants agree. (This is the data of Torshin’s federal parliamentary commission, so we better not trust it).

  September 1st. Second half of the day. A “black widow”, a female suicide bomber detonates herself. Hostages and terrorists are wounded and killed. The “widow” herself is torn into pieces. Before this the hostages saw this woman arguing with other terrorists.

  September 1st. 4:30PM. The literature office. Another seven male hostages were executed by the militants.

  September 1st. After 8:00PM. The plane carrying Dr. Roshal lands in Vladikavkaz. After midnight Roshal is in the anti-crisis headquarters over his cellphone. He is told from the school: “If you try to arrive to the school alone we will shoot you. Only with the presidents of Ingushetia and North Ossetia. … We don’t need you alone! You make twenty steps toward the school and you are a corpse.” Here Roshal’s mission ends. He was clearly confounded with Roshailo.

  September 2nd. 9:30AM. Beslan. Anti-crisis headquarters. I cite the book “01.09. Beslan’s File” written by Spiegel journalists based on documental testimonies, I remind. “The ratio of forces in the anti-crisis headquarters changes to the FSB favor. Its vice-chief Pronichev and general Alexander Tikhonov, commanding the anti-terrorism groups Alpha and Vimpel discuss the possibilities of a raid. North Ossetian politicians heavily protest. They beg the FSB not to undertake anything.”

  September 2nd. Noon. Beslan. Anti-crisis headquarters. They are waiting for Aslakhanov. He has not arrived to Beslan from Moscow yet. 27 hours passed since the beginning of the hostage taking. It takes two hours to fly from Moscow to Vladikavkaz. Where is Aslakhanov?

  Instead, Ruslan Aushev, former Ingushetia’s president, an Afghanistan’s veteran appears near the headquarters. The brothers Gutzeriev who enjoy authority in the Caucasus also appear. Mikhail is a former vice-speaker of the State Duma (now he is Rosneft’s director) and his brother Khamzan, Ingushetia’s retired Minister of Interior. Aushev is among Putin’s personal enemies. Neither the Gutzerievs nor Aushev are let inside the headquarters where Putin’s appointees are. From the moment he arrived Aushev has to call and direct the events standing in the yard of the headquarters.

  September 2nd, second half of the day. Beslan. Anti-crisis headquarters. Vladimir Yakovlev, Putin’s proxy in Russia’s South, arrives. Thirty hours have passed from the beginning of the crisis. He enters the headquarters. During this time Aushev continues to negotiate with the terrorists on the phone. This is how it is dryly noted in the report of Torshin’s federal commission: “On September 2nd the terrorists have named the outlaw Aslan Makhadov as a possible negotiator. Dzasokhov and Aushev tried to contact him through Zakayev but Maskhadov did not answer.” That’s it. However much more is said differently in the report of North Ossetia’s commission. “The hope for a bloodless end was linked with the possible participation of A. Maskhadov in the release of the hostages. The witness A. Zakayev was questioned by the commission and he told that he learned about the real state of things in Beslan from his first phone conversation with R. Aushev on September 2nd 29 hours after the capture of the school. R. Aushev asked Zakayev about bringing A. Maskhadov to negotiate. From the second half of September 2nd to the first half of September 3rd Zakayev tried to reach Maskhadov through third persons. Maskhadov was ready to go to Beslan but on one condition: providing an unhindered pathway to the school. Zakayev doubted the possibility to create a pathway for Maskhadov and proposed instead his candidacy to participate in the negotiations with the militants. On September 3rd at noon Zakayev contacted Dzasokhov and confirmed his and Maskhadov’s agreement to take part in the negotiations. Dzasokhov asked two hours to resolve the technical questions and organize the negotiations. The next conversation between Dzasokhov and Zakayev was supposed to take place at 2 o’clock. … The commission finds strange the fact that nobody from the operational headquarters attempted to contact Maskhadov in the first day of the school’s capture.”

  September 2nd. 2:45PM. Aslambek Aslakhanov spoke with the terrorists on the phone and promised to personally inform Putin
about their demands. The terrorists proposed Aslakhanov to come to the school with Aushev.

  September 2nd. 3:30PM. School Number One. Aushev goes to the school. He crosses the yard, comes to the big door in the gymnasium, which opens as he enters. He stops on the doorway. He asks the capturers if they recognize him. They do. Aushev is alone, there is no Aslakhanov.

  All the terrorists have put on masks for the visit. They film Aushev on video. They give Aushev a list of demands addressed to Putin by “Allah’s slave” Shamil Basayev. “The Colonel”, the terrorists’ leader, tells Aushev that the government can gather all the relatives of those who captured the school and execute them – this will not modify their resolutness to insist on their demands. They allow Aushev to take some hostages with him. He leaves the school with 11 women and 16 babies. The whole world sees the photo on which Aushev stands near his car with a naked baby on the car’s rear seat.

  The list of the terrorists’ demands is analyzed in the anti-crisis headquarters. Their demands are the same: the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Chechnya.

  September 2nd. Second half of the day. Beslan. Hospital. The direction is preparing beds by an order from Moscow. They can free 215 beds. If they call all the doctors from the district, there will be about two hundred people.

  September 2nd. Second half of the day. Vladikavkaz. From the 710 beds, 350 are kept ready in case. There are two operation rooms; 70 doctors and 200 nurses were called.

  The same day, second. Second half of the day. Vladikavkaz. The republican children’s hospital. The building is half unfinished. There are 820 beds. Of them 230 are made ready for Beslan’s victims. The patients whose state allows it are sent home. The direction keeps 7 operational brigades ready.

  “Only on the second day of the capture of hostages there are 1045 beds ready in four hospitals in Beslan and Vladikavkaz. The orders to the directors of the hospitals arrived directly from Moscow, from the Health ministry. The same government that still speaks about 354 hostages in official statements at the same time makes sure that over thousand beds are made ready for the hostages,” the German journalists write in the book “01.09. Beslan’s File”. It should be added here that this is the same government that lies to its people today that the federals did not start the raid, that everything was the terrorists’ fault. But the terrorists would have benefited from stretching the time as much as possible! Each hour benefited them. And each hour of keeping the hostages damaged the president’s reputation personally.

  September 2nd. Second half of the day. Anti-crisis headquarters. Roshal, whom nobody called, tries to convince the terrorists to make concessions by phone. They answer “No!” to everything.

  The North Ossetian commission concludes: “ By the end of the second day nobody from the high federal officials, whose functions at least partly include the negotiation of the demands put forward by the militants, accepted to negotiate with the terrorists. … By entrusting the negotiations to the regional functionaries, to the Special Forces, to a pediatrician as well as to M. Gurtziev and R. Aushev (S. Shoigu has personally asked him about it), the RF authorities have in essence distanced themselves from the responsibility and condemned the entire negotiation process to failure.”

  September 2nd. Beslan. 4:30PM. The headquarters head Andreyev ordered Sobolev, the commander of the 58th army, to provide tanks and armored vehicles to the FSB special assignment center on their demand. At 5 o’clock Sobolev asked a tank division to Beslan. At 6:15PM the tanks arrived to Beslan. Viktor Sobolev, the commander of the 58th army also gave six armored vehicles to the FSB.

  By midnight on September 2nd the speaker of North Ossetia’s parliament Mamsurov and the State Duma deputy Rogozin sketched the project of an agreement with the terrorists. The project is essentially about negotiations of the federal leadership with Maskhadov, the plan of an autonomy status for Chechnya and a gradual withdrawal of troops.

  September 3rd. 7:30AM. Beslan. Anti-crisis headquarters. The negotiations with the terrorists lasted until 2 o’clock in the morning. The headquarters tried to obtain the transfer of medicaments, water and food to the school. “The Colonel”, leader of the terrorists, kept giving the same answer: “The hostages don’t need food or water. They have declared a hunger-strike to their government.” After long telephone conversations the Ingushetian businessman Gutzeriev, who gradually becomes the principal negotiator, manages to convince the terrorists that the corpses must be removed from the schoolyard and from Komintern Street. They have been laying there for almost two days on the sun and the rain.

  September 3rd. 10:30AM. Beslan. The houses closest to the school are already evacuated. Most of them are still empty. However four commandos from the Alpha group appear in house number 37. They fix a machine-gun. Gradually other positions are occupied around the school.

  September 3rd. 1:00PM. Beslan. A truck enters the school territory from Komintern Street. Two employees of the Ministry of Emergencies stand inside. The vehicle is moving slowly, almost crawling. The terrorists agreed that the corpses that have lain there for two days now must be removed from the schoolyard. The clock shows 1:01PM. Maybe 1:02. Maybe 1:03. An explosion is heard from the direction of the school, a powerful one. Than another and a third one 10-20 minutes later.

  The report of Torshin’s federal commission says the following: “At 1:05PM two powerful explosions took place in the school. According to some hostages the terrorists were intoxicated. Possibly because of this they lost the ability to control the explosive device and an explosion ensued.” That is all. One gets the impression that the commission purposely skipped the most important question of Beslan’s tragedy: what is the nature of the explosions, after which began the raid that led to the deaths of 331 hostages? In other words, who is responsible for the deaths of 331 people, 186 of whom were children?

  The North Ossetian parliamentary commission (I cite Novaya Gazeta, issue 64): “From the testimonies of hostages and witnesses the conclusion can be made that the explosions in the gymnasium were a surprise for the militants themselves. Also there are a lot of witnesses who say that the explosions in the gymnasium were provoked from outside. Also there is information that none of the closed chains linking the explosive devices have detonated in the gymnasium. There is information that after the explosions in the gymnasium, sappers of the 58th army could demine most of the device. In all there were fourteen self-made explosive devices and four antipersonnel mines. Eleven explosive devices were found and demined.” The commission points out the following: “Thanks to the law quality of the investigation made by the Prosecutor General’s office about the causes of the first explosions, only the testimonies of the hostages and witnesses can be trusted. The absence of a qualified expertise in the commission’s criminal case seem definitely strange and calls for many questions.” The commission considers the version about the cause-and-effect link between the use of flamethrowers (the flamethrowers, rather their tubes were presented to Torshin’s commission by the victims: the Committee of Beslan’s Mothers) and the first explosions in the gymnasium as the main one because the official version claiming that the bomb exploded automatically or accidentally because of the militants’ actions is not supported by any evidence. The Ossetian commission also points out that “no traces of hard drugs were found in the bodies of the militants”, which corresponds to the testimonies of the hostages who emphasize the high professionalism of the terrorists and do not tend to consider the terrorists as banal drug addicts. We will turn to the extremely important question about the nature of the explosions at 1:02PM and 1:05PM in the end of this chapter, but now let us follow the tragedy to the end.

  So, the first explosion at one o’clock coincided with the arrival of the truck with employees from the Ministry of emergencies. At the same time a second explosion followed. Right after the first two explosions the hostages started to get out through the broken windows (the terrorists have broken the windows in the beginning of the capture fearing that gas might be employed
against them – like in the Center on Dubrovka.), first one by one, then by dozens and ran for their lives on the school’s territory. Shooting broke out from both sides. Immediately after the first two explosions general Andreyev gave the order to general Tikhonov (leader of the FSB special assignment center, commanding the Alpha and Vimpel groups) to start the military operation to save the hostages, i.e. to start the raid. The snipers of the intelligence group started to fire at the enemy. Fire trucks, ambulances, police and private vehicles were occupying positions around the school during these minutes. They picked up those who escaped and brought them to Beslan’s hospitals.

  September 3rd. 1: 30PM. The roof of the gymnasium collapsed. An entire wing of the building caught fire. An armored vehicle is firing. The terrorists try to gather part of the hostages to the basement. And through the main hallway into the theater hall. This is how the German journalists saw this situation at 1:30: “ All of this looks like a planned storm from the other side, from Komintern Street. Two tanks arrive with armored vehicles; grenade and flamethrowers take position. We don’t see rescue equipment, only attack equipment. Combat helicopters of the MI-24 type arrive. The children and the elderly are running and crawling in all directions in the yard. Girls and mothers run away from the gymnasium almost with no clothes on.”

  According to the unanimous testimony of the witnesses the combat helicopter appeared above the school right after 1:05AM or even at 1:04AM. I am of the opinion that the first explosions were not shots from flamethrowers but missiles from the helicopters. I watched how this is done in the Serbia wars.

  2:00PM. There are seventy hostages in the cafeteria. The militants order the children to tear the white curtains from the walls, to go on the windows and to wave the curtains. And to shout “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” Nurpashi Kulayev, the future hero of the trial, in a training suit, unarmed, joins the hostages. “I didn’t kill anybody here. They forced me.”