I came across an article a couple of days ago detailing how Russia killed some Chechen rebels by using gas and storming the building.

Russian troops on Sunday used heavy weaponry and gas to kill three rebels holed up in a house near Chechnya, local media reported.

The rebels were besieged in an apartment block for more than a day, before dozens of special forces troops with armored vehicles subdued them, leaving their apartment in flames, Reuters news agency reported.

Now, what I’m getting at is not how dire the situation is between these two factions, but the use of gas weaponry made me remember a particular event in 2002. Does anyone remember the hostage crisis in the Moscow theater?

Raid

Early Saturday morning, October 26, forces from Russia’s elite Spetsnaz commando unit of the Federal Security Service (FSB) pumped an aerosol anaesthetic into the theater through a hole in the wall before storming the building from the roof and from all entrances. They decided on this tactic because of the large number of terrorists and the explosives they had scattered all over the building, and the likelihood that they would start killing hostages as soon as they realised they were under attack.

During the raid, many of the terrorists were shot in the head at point-blank range after already losing consciousness from the gas. One Russian commando told the media, “I understand that this is cruel, but when there are two kilograms of plastic explosives hanging on a person, we see no other way of rendering them safe.”

At least 40 terrorists and 120 hostages (official figures ???????? 33 and 128 respectively) died in the raid or in the following days. The terrorists were shot in the head. Two hostages were shot by terrorists, while the others died through a combination of the fentanyl-based aerosol, lack of food and water, and the lack of adequate medical treatment following the raid.

Aftermath

Efforts to treat victims were complicated because the Russian government refused to tell doctors what type of gas had been used. The head doctor of the Moscow public health department announced that all but one of the hostages that were killed in the raid had died of the effects of the unknown gas, rather than from gunshot wounds. At the time, the gas was surmised to be some sort of surgical anaesthetic or chemical weapon. Foreign embassies in Moscow, including the United States Embassy, issued official requests for more information on the gas to aid in treatment, but were publicly ignored.

Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the raid in a televised address later that morning, stating that the government had “achieved the near impossible, saving hundreds, hundreds of people,” asked forgiveness for not being able to save more of the hostages, and declared Monday a national day of mourning for those who died.

Armed guards were posted at the hospitals the victims were taken to, and doctors were ordered not to release any of the theater patients, in case terrorists had somehow hidden themselves among the hostages. Family members of hostages panicked as the government refused to release any information about which hospitals their loved ones had been taken to, or even whether their relatives were among the dead.

While still refusing to identify the gas, on October 28 the Russian government informed the US Embassy of some of the gas’s effects. Based on this information and examinations of victims, doctors concluded the gas was a morphine derivative.

On Wednesday, October 30, Russia responded to increasing domestic and international pressure with a statement on the unknown gas by Health Minister Yuri Shevchenko. He identified it as an aerosol of a Fentanyl derivative, a powerful opioid.

A German toxicology professor who examined several German hostages said that their blood and urine contained halothane, a surgical anesthetic not commonly used in the West, and that it was likely the gas had additional components. However, it should be noted that halothane has a strong odor (although often defined as “pleasant” by comparison with other anesthetic gases). Furthermore by the time the whole theater area would be filled with halothane to a concentration compatible with loss of consciousness (0.5% – 3%), it is likely that terrorists inside would have realized they were being attacked. Additionally, recovery of consciousness is rapid after the flow of gas is interrupted, unlike with high-dose fentanyl administration. Therefore, although halothane might have been a component in the aerosol, it was probably not a major component.

Here is a thread with views from many places, but the proper use of such things is not what I’m really talking about. The Moscow theatre incident was the first major instance of gas weaponry use by the Russians, and it has been in use since then against the Chechen rebels. Given the confusion and secrecy surrounding the event, would it be too off the mark to suggest that its use in the theatre was an experiment by the Russian government to see its effects en masse?