Original subtitles

Narrator: 40 heavily armed islamist terrorists

seize a theater and over 800 innocent civilians.

Demands are made.

Hostages are lined up for execution.

The clock starts ticking.

[ Gunshot ]

It was an absolute nightmare situation

from the point of view of the security forces.

Narrator: Only the elite special ops force spetsnaz group alfa

has a chance to defeat them.

It's a race against time as deadlines approach.

You got to have people willing to go there.

And that's the difference between

a soldier and a specialist.

Narrator: There's no obvious way of

preventing the murder of hundreds.

Only one very long shot -- a secret Russian technology

that's never been tried before --

stands a chance of saving them.

Now on "black ops," we go behind the scenes

on one of the most unbelievably risky hostage rescues

in modern times.

It's not a movie. It's not a reality show.

It's reality.

And reality's very unpredictable.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

narrator: The crisis starts on an ordinary evening

in an ordinary suburb of Russia's capital city, moscow.

It's a wet fall night, and for 800 Russians,

a time with friends and family at a popular musical

is a welcome prospect to cheer up a dreary weekday evening.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: Almost by accident we got to see the musical.

We didn't plan to.

The weather on this day was terrible.

It was a very gray day.

My granddaughter was very young at the time.

She felt really nervous,

as if something bad was going to happen.

She was really crying, and she wouldn't let us go.

Narrator: Tickets are sold out at the popular venue,

a huge Soviet-arab building

that had been converted into an arts center,

a place of peaceful, civilized recreation.

In some ways, what was particularly striking about it

was that it was not striking.

It was not a particular high-prestige target.

Narrator: This is the theater's actual recording of

that fateful night's performance of

a romantic comedy set in the 1950s,

with the plot featuring cheerful Russian soldiers.

Just a block away, four vans with a force of

40 heavily armed chechen terrorists

are closing in on the theater fast.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: We were enjoying it.

After the interval, we went back to the second half,

and there was dancing,

and that's when the siege started.

[ Gunshots ]

Narrator: Now the extremists burst into the theater,

rake the foyer with gunfire,

and spread through the building fast.

They're suicide bombers who,

for years, have been at war with Russia.

Islamist jihadis from a breakaway Republic

who will stop at nothing to get their way.

Now they've brought their campaign of terror

into the midst of Russia's civilians.

The theater's recording reveals

the moment the terrorists take over the building

as they seal it off from the outside world.

[ Gunfire ]

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: People in military uniform

walked around the auditorium and down the aisles,

and at first I thought it was part of the play.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: One of the actors was made to sit next to me

after the chechens had stormed the stage,

and I whispered, "that's an amazing piece of theater."

Narrator: Slowly, the audience realizes that the game has changed,

the terror has started,

and they're now hostages.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: Then I saw some of the soldiers

hit people with rifle butts, and I realized that it was serious.

And he replied, "that's not part of the play.

This is for real."

It was then that I realized what danger we were in.

Narrator: Now the terrorists are in control,

and the siege has begun.

The theater couldn't be better designed

as a place to hold hostages.

The auditorium is a perfect prison

with few exits that are easy to guard.

Every one of the terrorists are radical extremists

committed to die for their cause,

pitiless and determined.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: The unique feature of a terrorist threat

is that you can never predict how serious their plans are --

if they're just bluffing

or if they are really ready to sacrifice themselves.

We were inclined to think that they were not joking.

Narrator: With alarm bells ringing

in every security department in moscow,

the worst possible scenario is now a reality.

It was an absolute nightmare situation

from the point of view of the security forces.

It really is the last thing they wanted.

They knew from past experience that

the chechen terrorists would be, if necessary,

willing to blow themselves up.

Amongst the terrorists, there would be people who had

had experience fighting during the guerilla war,

and therefore they knew how to use their weapons.

They were unlikely to listen to humanitarian appeals.

Narrator: It looks like a no-win situation for Russia's authorities.

Their only hope -- spetsnaz group alfa,

an anti-terror unit the envy of the world,

soldiers built to take on terrorists,

hardened by years of confronting chechen attackers.

But even for them,

a mass suicide-bomb attack and 850 hostages

is an almost impossible challenge.

Within minutes, the elite of Russia's anti-terror strategists

are scrambled.

It's clear that conventional tactics won't work.

Their solution --

a secret gas technology unknown outside Russia.

But there's a problem.

It's completely untried.

If it succeeds, it'll beat the terrorists.

If it fails, the consequences are unthinkable.

Orders from the kremlin summon every fighting man in the city,

and moscow's barracks are emptied

as hundreds descend on the theater.

[ Sirens wail ]

The chechen terrorists have some new techniques of their own

to add to their advantage.

Never seen before, female suicide bombers --

the so-called black widows --

women who've lost their loved ones

and are willing to die for their cause.

At a single command,

they'll detonate their bomb belts

and trigger a series of massive explosions

that will demolish the theater, killing everyone.

This is payback for years of suffering

in a conflict with Russia

that seems impossible to resolve peacefully.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: A lot of people passionately hate the Russian government

and project their hate on all Russians.

When your family's been destroyed,

you'd never go for peace talks,

at least until you get some revenge.

The government spawned a huge number of sworn enemies,

and the black widows

who appeared on the TV for the first time

were a variation of such sworn enemies.

Narrator: The chechens make sure

the black widows are constantly on display.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: They appeared in absolutely all footage,

in journalistic as well as that made by terrorists themselves.

All of them were dressed in black

and were wearing suicide bomber's belts.

Their main task was to show that they were ready for everything.

Narrator: The black widows are not just a propaganda tool.

They're also deadly serious.

They've come to moscow for one purpose only.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: Everyone understood that this was not an act.

Everyone knew that these women,

if they called themselves black widows,

were ready to blow themselves up.

Narrator: Finally, there are two massive bombs

each too heavy for a single person to lift

placed among the hostages at the center of the auditorium,

their hair-trigger detonator

at the fingertip of a black widow.

[ Sirens wail ]

Narrator: Moscow faces the ultimate terror trap --

850 hostages held by 40 suicide bombers

with a burning hatred of Russia.

One false move and everybody dies.

It's the worst terrorist outrage

that's ever faced the country and its special forces.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: The main danger was obvious --

a very powerful bomb in the auditorium with suicide bombers.

I knew alfa had very little time for an assault,

and only a very slim chance to destroy the terrorists

before they detonated their infernal machine.

I'd never known a situation

where people were grouped around a giant bomb

that could be detonated in one second.

Narrator: And any hope of a peaceful resolution

is very small.

The chechens can only be pacified by the impossible --

the withdrawal of Russian troops from their homeland.

They terrorist agenda was straightforward

if ridiculously unrealistic.

They wanted, basically,

the Russians to pull out of chechnya.

They wanted an end to the war, and they wanted victory.

They were not necessarily stupid.

They had, I think, no real expectation

that this was going to happen.

This was, frankly, a terror raid

rather than a carefully planned political act.

Narrator: Only one group has a chance if taking them out

without setting off the bombs --

the elite spetsnaz group alfa,

among the most experienced and successful

anti-terrorist special forces in the world.

Group alfa are Russia's Navy seals.

Their headquarters -- moscow.

The chechens have brought their war to

the home city of Russia's hardest men.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: A massive group of people take over,

in the heart of moscow, in the heart of Russia,

I couldn't believe it -- how 30 people got in

and managed to take so many people hostage.

When I got the call, it was very brief --

"it's an emergency."

Narrator: Alfa was formed in the 1970s

and has evolved constantly since.

During the cold war, the Soviet union

needed ruthless killers more than battlefield heroes,

people who could

start revolutions and kill heads of state

without anyone knowing who was behind it.

That meant lightning speed,

total stealth, and clinical precision.

These are not negotiators.

These are not people who are there to

rescue hostages first and foremost.

These are people who go in

because they have people to kill.

Wah!

Narrator: Alfa training is the toughest in the world

with levels of brutality and extreme personal endurance

that in many armed forces would be illegal.

They go through a phenomenally brutal training regime

which culminates in sort of a 12-minute period

where they have to take on 12 experienced special forces

in hand-to-hand combat, and all they have to do

is basically stay standing at the end of that 12 minutes.

Even so, a lot of them never get through that.

Wah!

You cannot just wish for it.

You have to learn it, you have to ingrain it in people,

and there is a method to that madness.

Narrator: But alfa operatives are trained not to just be physically tough,

but to be extremely mentally capable as well.

Training is the most important part,

not the hardware, the toys, the technical implements.

You become a thinking fighter, thinking operator

versus someone who follows the script.

Aah!

Narrator: The glory days of Russia's special forces

were Afghanistan in the 1970s and '80s.

They were sent to kabul to kill the Afghan president,

and in the raid lost only two men.

But after the cold war,

Russia's biggest problem was terrorism,

and it was alfa that answered the call.

They are among the world's great experts

in dealing with hostage taking,

and group alfa specialize in extracting people from

a massive range of different environments.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: If you are an alfa officer

specializing in storming airplanes,

you will train all day long to storm the plane blindfolded.

You know where every rivet is.

You know how to open the aisle cover,

how to penetrate the plane through the service doors,

and so on.

[ Sirens wail ]

Narrator: But there's another reason why

the moscow theater siege mission is special --

alfa's reputation has been tarnished

after being drawn into Russia's unstable internal politics.

The unit's reputation reached the ultimate low in 1991,

when it was ordered to

crush popular support of the government

and back a coup by hard-line communists.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: There have always been hard times,

especially in those moments when we realized that

our division was being misused.

Our primary objective is fighting terrorists,

the homeland enemies,

and we have always perceived and still perceive

internal conflicts with suspicion.

Narrator: The attempted coup

turned alfa from the heroes of Afghanistan

into the attack dogs of Russia's secret police.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: It all came as a real shock.

All the officers had a very hard time.

We were not prepared to fight our own people.

We all saw ourselves as an elite unit

whose mission was to save people,

and we were seeing through our helmet visor

people just like our mothers, sisters, and brothers.

We had no desire to use special techniques on our own people.

Naturally, this affected the combat ability.

It is one thing to fight your enemy,

and another thing your own people.

Narrator: Now, 11 years later,

spetsnaz group alfa have a chance to

assert their integrity as defenders of their nation

by taking on its most deadly enemy

in the heart of the country.

But it's a chance that comes at a price.

It will be the toughest test ever of their formidable skills.

[ Siren wails ]

Narrator: Spetsnaz group alfa,

the cream of Russia's elite special forces,

faces the impossible -- 40 suicide bombers

a hair trigger from blowing up themselves, two giant bombs,

and 850 innocent hostages inside a heavily defended theater.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: This wasn't a standard situation.

In the history of the special forces,

this was a first in moscow.

Narrator: Alfa are specialist anti-siege commandos.

This is what they train for night and day.

But this problem is unique.

No conventional tactics have ever had to stop

40 suicide bombers simultaneously

when each is ready to blow the second they sense a threat.

So, if conventional tactics can't do the job,

alfa's planners are thinking out of the box.

It's time to come up with some unconventional ideas.

For the hostages surrounded by suicide bombers vowing to die,

an assault by special forces is a terrifying thought.

Calling their families and the media,

they do everything they can to stop alfa from attacking.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: They were making phone calls, saying,

"please don't let them storm the theater.

"Please negotiate peacefully and carefully,

and maybe you'll be able to find a peaceful solution."

Narrator: To increase the pressure on Russia's authorities,

the terrorists have been

releasing footage of the hostages.

And they're careful to avoid revealing

anything that might be useful to attackers.

Then, they make their first mistake.

As an act of mercy, they release some vulnerable hostages --

children and sick people.

With careful questioning, alfa's intelligence officers

are able to get the first bits of information

about the situation inside the theater

that the chechens don't want known...

The total number of terrorists,

the positions of snipers,

and ammunition stores.

Then, six hours into the siege,

a completely unpredictable element enters the equation.

A truly bizarre event unfolds as,

unseen by the security guards around the theater,

a young woman walks right off the street

and into the building.

No one knows who she is or why she's there.

[ Speaking Russian ]

She goes into the auditorium and shouts at the audience,

telling them to rise up against the chechens.

And then she starts at the gunman.

Budnindsky: [ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: She busts through the aisle screaming, "what have you done?

You should release all the people," she was saying.

"I'm going to call the police."

Maybe she was drunk.

The chechens said she was a kgb agent

pretending to be a drunk woman.

Narrator: The chechens show just what they do

with anyone who won't take them seriously.

[ Gun cocks ]

[ Gunshot ]

Narrator: The woman was

a 26-year-old local shop assistant, Olga romanova,

with no connection to the hostages or the theater.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: After the incident with Olga,

just after it happened, the whole mood among

the audience and terrorists changed.

From then on, there was a different atmosphere.

Everyone understood that

this was something that might happen again.

It was much more serious.

Narrator: As the world looks on in horror,

alfa intelligence is building up a detailed picture of

the situation inside the theater

and the weaknesses of the terrorists.

Cellphone conversations between the hostages and their families

now reveal a much more serious situation.

The terrorists have not only

wired the auditorium to kill all the hostages,

but wired the whole building and packed it with bombs.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: The security people were 100% convinced

the bombs were real and would be detonated.

This put the special forces in a position where

they knew they would almost certainly be killed

along with 90% of the hostages.

So, they were looking for

whatever advantage they could get.

That meant they were ruling out nothing,

and I mean absolutely nothing.

Narrator: 48 hours into the siege,

and the terrorists decide to turn up the heat.

The chechen commander, movsar barayev,

announces he's going to start executions at midnight --

one killing every hour until his demands are met.

The victims are selected by barayev himself.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: There was a decision to shoot 10 people

on either the fourth or fifth row,

and just after this information

started to spread around the hostages,

one of the chechens came and sat down

at the end of the fifth row wearing a mask,

and everyone now expected that at any minute,

something would happen to the people in the fifth row.

Narrator: Now the Russian authorities face a dilemma.

Either alfa goes in and triggers an explosion

with mass casualties,

or the world watches helpless as the chechens

start killing innocent men, women, and children

one by one, hour by hour.

Alfa strategists now have to go for

their most radical solution -- a long shot,

so risky it would normally be dismissed as impossible.

But this is an impossible situation.

For years, Russian military scientists have been working on

a secret formula for a knockout gas

that will stop any aggressor in his tracks.

Even today, its exact composition is a state secret,

and scientists outside Russia

can only guess what it really was.

As far as we can ascertain,

the agent that was used in the theater siege

was a derivative of an opiate called fentanyl.

Opiates are very potent, and they depress your breathing.

They're normally used in operating theaters.

But what they want was something that would act very quickly,

would knock people out,

that could be delivered in the air.

So this is why they probably chose fentanyl.

Narrator: In complete secrecy, Russia's military scientists

have figured a way to multiply the strength of

a powerful medical anesthetic by a factor of several thousand.

If this top-secret, untried chemical

could somehow be piped into the theater without anyone noticing,

it might just sedate the terrorists enough

to stop them from detonating their bombs

and give alfa a chance of taking them out in an assault.

It sounds like something out of science fiction,

but it's about to get the green light

from president putin himself.

This is absolutely a one-off.

Sometimes gasses from a knockout tear gas have been used,

but never has it been used on this scale

in these kind of concentrations --

to flood an entire area with knockout gas.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: Their logic was that if 90% of the hostages would die anyway,

and if this gas could help save at least a few,

then it should be applied.

Narrator: But even if they use the gas, there's a problem.

The chechen leader, movsar barayev,

is going to start executions at midnight.

That's just two hours away.

To get the gas equipment inside the building

and then fill it up so it knocks people out

is going to take far longer.

Even with the secret weapon,

it looks like there's no way of stopping

the executions of innocent civilians.

Narrator: 850 hostages, 40 suicide bombers,

and executions about to start.

The only solution is Russia's elite special ops force,

spetsnaz group alfa.

But the conventional tactics are too dangerous.

Even though it's a terrorist outrage on their own doorstep,

Russia's hardest men have to hold back.

Instead, they have to use a high-risk strategy

that's never been tried before.

Their only option is an untried top-secret knockout gas,

and even then, there's no way of knowing for sure

what it'll do, how long it'll take to act,

and what the terrorists will do

when they realize what's going on.

Alfa know that

even if they throw everything they have at the problem,

the chances of failure are extremely high.

It's an agonizing situation.

And before they put the plan into action,

there's one more obstacle,

and this one seems insurmountable.

They just don't have the time to make it work.

Alfa's most expert engineers

can't get the gas equipment in place

before the chechens' executioners

threaten to start their evil work,

killing one innocent every hour till their demands are met.

And there's another factor ramping up the time pressure --

days without sleep and massive stress

means both hostages and captors are getting jumpy.

The sense is that

just one individual can do something silly,

or else, just bad luck.

You know, for example, let's say some of the hostages

try to take matters into their own hands

and it could lead to a massive explosion.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: The most important thing they're all afraid of

was the psychological fatigue of the terrorists,

so everyone was aware that there was a time limit.

Narrator: Alfa badly need two things --

more time and anything that will calm the situation down.

An hour before the deadline,

the unexpected once again changes the game.

Movsar barayev, the chechen leader,

gets a phone call from moscow's special envoy to chechnya --

general Viktor kazantsev.

He offers to fly to moscow

and negotiate face-to-face with the terrorists

with the full authority of the president,

Vladimir putin, behind him.

There's one condition -- no executions.

The chechens buy it.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: Barayev came in looking happy,

saying "tomorrow, kazantsev is flying back to moscow."

And at that point, the mood lifted.

The black widows came across as much more upbeat

and started telling us, "you see,

our barayev gets things done better than your putin."

Narrator: For the chechens,

this seems a major strategic breakthrough,

and they're overjoyed.

[ Man speaking Russian ]

This is the actual wire-tapped conversation

between kazantsev and barayev

cutting a deal to delay the executions.

The terrorists' plan seems to be working.

Until now, they've been ignored,

outlaws from a forgotten conflict.

Now the president's man is coming to plea with them

in the heart of the Russian capitol.

Galeotti: It was undoubtedly a delaying tactic.

One thing that the authorities knew is they needed time.

They needed time to dig out the blueprints of the theater

and train their operations forces to make an assault.

They needed time to decide

just quite what they were going to do.

Narrator: Meanwhile, alfa uses

the precious time bought by the negotiators to maximum effect.

Through the night, deep beneath the theater,

working in total silence and with utmost care,

engineers secure canisters of the knockout gas

in strategic parts of the theater's air-conditioning.

[ Beeping ]

The time for it to be released has arrived.

Gradually, it starts to filter into the auditorium

to do its work.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Aware that something is happening,

the chechen gunmen run from the auditorium

and leave the black widows at their posts.

[ Beeping ]

Rather than set off the bombs, the gunmen seem to want to

prolong the siege and run to the defense of the building,

determined to take on their old adversaries, the spetsnaz,

in combat.

[ Gunfire, shouting ]

But there isn't anyone to fight.

Alfa group still has to hold back.

If just one black widow is conscious,

the whole theater could still blow.

And every minute that

the auditorium fills with the powerful agent,

the danger to the hostages increases.

Hay: One of the problems is where you release the agent.

So, you have to use air vents.

And you've got to ensure that the agent you release

will knock everybody out quickly,

so this means that you have to pump in huge quantities

to reach the people at the far end of the theater.

And, in pumping in large amounts,

what you're going to end up doing

is giving some people at the far end of the theater

enough to knock them out,

but the people close to the vent are going to get

many times the lethal dose of an agent.

[ Alarm blaring ]

Narrator: Soon after the release of the gas,

the first signs of its effects emerge.

Semi-drugged hostages manage to escape the auditorium.

It's clear the terrorists are no longer in control.

Now is the time to strike.

The waiting's over.

The word comes from strategic command to go.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: When the officers received the order

to enter the building and destroy the terrorists,

all of them were 100% certain that

in the event of an explosion, no one would come back alive.

[ Gunfire ]

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: It's our job.

If you're going to think about the mission too much

and what could go wrong, it's not going to help.

You go into zombie mode, autopilot,

to fulfill the mission.

It may seem cold, but it is necessary.

Narrator: Taking out as many chechens as possible

before the order to detonate is now the top priority.

[ Gunfire ]

Alfa's legendary speed cuts down the gunmen in seconds.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: It would have been good to

take some terrorists alive to question them,

but when you're there in that situation,

you have weapons, they have weapons,

and you need to fire before they do.

It's a quick decision.

Narrator: And in the auditorium,

alfa killed every black widow without a second's pause.

Some die before they can detonate their bomb belts.

Others press the triggers only for the belts to fail.

But the theater could still blow at any moment

because there's still one person who can inflict mass casualties.

Now, seconds count in the hunt to

stop the chechen leader, movsar barayev.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: We were expecting barayev to be

in the auditorium with the bombs, and he wasn't.

Narrator: Movsar barayev is loose in the building.

Now spetsnaz have to find him and stop him

before he puts into action the terrorists' ultimate sanction --

detonation of the bombs.

Eventually, he's traced to

a storeroom behind the theater's cafeteria.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: Once the officers of alfa came in,

after just a minute and a half,

all the terrorists were shot down,

and none of them managed to trigger a single bomb.

The whole operation was not more than 10 minutes in duration.

The shooting itself can be counted in just a few minutes.

Narrator: Alfa's lightning speed

prevents the explosions and stops the crisis in its tracks.

It is, without doubt, one of the most successful

alfa operations ever undertaken.

Not a single operative or hostage is harmed,

and all the enemy are taken out.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: I remember that I thought,

"thank God the bombs did not go off."

I can imagine if the bombs had exploded,

no one would have survived.

[ Sirens wail ]

Narrator: The first hostages are pulled to safety

as the whole world watches the extraordinary achievement

of the elite force after three days of agony.

It looks like alfa's reputation has risen from the ashes.

But any hope that the mission's over

is quickly dashed.

For even from beyond the grave, the chechens have

another surprise for the Russians they hate so much.

Intelligence reports suggest

there are hidden bombs around the theater on timers

that are impossible to find and defuse in time.

If this intelligence is true,

the theater could still blow at any moment.

They have to get the hostages out fast.

[ Siren wails ]

With extraordinary haste verging on panic,

rescue teams sweep into the building.

Their task -- to haul out the unconscious hostages

in a race against time

with an unknown number of ticking time bombs beneath them.

But in a siege beset by surprises and unexpected twists,

the greatest of all is about to unfold

in front of the world's TV cameras.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: The dubrovka operation

should be divided into two major phases --

one which involved alfa units who did their job,

and another one that happened afterwards.

Narrator: As phase one of the military operation is completed,

the job is now to get the hostages out of the theater.

Alfa were not essentially tasked with

getting the hostages out.

There were too few of them,

and that's not really what they're about.

That would have been the role of other elements

within the fire service, within the ambulance corps or whatever.

And this is really where the operation fell apart.

Narrator: Alfa's done a brilliant job --

a textbook operation that couldn't have been bettered

by any special forces team anywhere.

But the hostages aren't out of danger,

and the mission is about to enter its darkest phase yet.

Narrator: Spetsnaz group alfa,

the cream of Russia's elite forces,

have pulled off a brilliant feat of military skill and daring.

But the operation's not over yet.

Storming a theater packed with explosives

to free 800 hostages held by 40 suicide bombers

would be impossible for all but

the bravest and most professional men.

And to prevent a 100% certainly of a massive explosion,

alfa have used a secret technology

unknown outside Russia and never tried before --

a knockout gas pumped into the theater

to slow down the suicide bombers.

It couldn't have worked better.

A perfect score for alfa,

who killed every terrorist and saved all the innocent.

But now, the unthinkable is happening.

Alfa's work is unraveling.

As they assess the success of their part of the operation,

alfa's relieved commanders

continue to monitor the situation.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: When the first media reports about

the completion of the operation and the freeing of the hostages

started coming in,

of course we were all euphoric, including myself.

We saw dead black widows,

and there was no information on their losses.

Narrator: And then the stark reality starts to emerge.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: Sometime after,

we saw and got reports that the operation went well.

There was no explosion.

People were reported alive.

And then the tragedy came.

Every hour updates began to come of 10, 20, 30, 40 people dead.

Everyone was stunned.

Narrator: Hostages that look as if they're unconscious from the gas

are in fact dying, and it's due to

the same technology used to rescue them.

Some of the police officers that carried the people out,

they had no idea about the recovery position

for people that have a severe respiratory depression,

so they just laid them on their backs,

and people suffocated.

Instead of putting them in their recovery positions on the side,

where the tongue would relax

and they would be able to breathe

until the antidote was administered.

Narrator: The brilliance of alfa's military operation

is now being catastrophically let down by civilian evacuation,

wreaking more havoc in minutes

than the chechens have done in the previous three days.

If you were going to do something like this thoroughly,

you would want everybody primed,

and for some reason, that didn't happen.

The people who needed to help with the cleanup

and the protection of individuals who were affected

just didn't know what to do.

Narrator: Without realizing the terrible damage they're doing,

paramedics and police are carrying out drugged hostages

with their heads at dangerous angles,

lying unconscious faces exposed upwards to the elements.

Completely helpless, hostages are suffocating,

choking on their own vomit

or gagging to death on their tongues.

It was quite clear that the way people were brought out

and just dumped when they came out of the theater

that no thought had been given to the fact that

people's breathing might have been compromised.

So, there was very little coordination.

Narrator: And it's not only that

the evacuation teams aren't organized

to deal with drugged hostages.

They haven't even prepared enough supplies

for the hundreds who need treatment.

An antidote to the gas exists,

but it's only available in tiny quantities

with a handful of people qualified to administer it.

In the hours and days that follow the siege,

the city's hospitals struggle to cope,

and the death toll steadily climbs.

In all, 133 civilians die in the 2002 dubrovka theater siege,

only three at the hands of the terrorists.

Nearly all the fatalities are caused by

the gas used to rescue them --

either overdoses, or because the unconscious were mishandled.

[ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: I think everybody understands that

although 133 people died,

in the circumstances, it could have been 1,000.

The full scale of the tragedy could have been very different.

I was miserable. It was a real tragedy.

Narrator: Because of the civilian deaths,

the alfa teams involved don't call the operation a success.

Torshin: [ Speaking Russian ]

Interpreter: The only success was the killing of the terrorists

and that the majority of people were still alive,

but, generally, it was not a success

because more than 100 people died.

It's not that we didn't work hard enough.

It wasn't because of bad planning.

It wasn't alfa's fault.

We don't feel proud of what we did

because it's our job.

Narrator: The deaths become all the more poignant

when it's revealed that the giant bombs in the theater

were fakes all along

and some of the black widows' belts were duds.

Even though alfa themselves

were unaware of this at the time,

it leaves the impression that the use of the gas

and the deaths that it caused had all been for nothing.

Media observers start

talking about the operation as a tragedy.

Puzikas: So, 130-some hostages dying is a tragedy?

Absolutely.

Huge tragedy to every single family that lost a loved one.

It would have been a little bit bigger tragedy

thousand of them dying in a few huge explosions.

And in the long run, it would have been an even bigger tragedy

if a state, a country, succumbs to the demands --

people like that, capable to do something like that,

achieve what they want to achieve.

Narrator: The irony is plain to all

that the expertise of the military is only mirrored by

the failures of the civilian rescue effort.

Today, in the eyes of most Russians,

spetsnaz group alfa are

the heroes of the dubrovka theater siege.

For the kind of liberal antigovernment protestors

who are marching in the streets of moscow,

it shows how the kremlin is brutal, heavy-handed,

doesn't mind letting people die as long as it kills its enemies.

To be honest, though, for the majority of Russians,

actually what dubrovka says

is that Russia is still strong and determined,

and if you mess with Russia,

then you can expect a devastating response.

Narrator: The extraordinary achievement

of spetsnaz group alfa at dubrovka

stands unchallenged as

one of the most daring and technically brilliant operations

ever undertaken to break a siege and counter terrorism.

Alfa's fight to assert its integrity

after years of political interference has triumphed.

Once again, it's proved itself

the defender of the Russian people.