On October 26, the website APN.ru wrote that it was not Putin but rather a high-ranking FSB official who took the actual decision to launch the assault on the theater: "The deputy minister of internal affairs of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vasil'ev," the website revealed,... MORE

President George W. Bush, in company a host of foreign leaders, offered firm support to Vladimir Putin during the hostage crisis. On October 25, Bush telephoned Putin and offered unspecified help in freeing the hostages. On that same day, representatives of the U.S. special services... MORE

On October 24, the second day of the hostage crisis, the polling organization ROMIR asked Moscow residents the question: "How can one save the hostages?" The responses: (1) "Convince the terrorists to surrender" ... 64.5 percent; (2) "Take the building by storm" ... 16.4 percent;... MORE

:* The questions* A theory with holes in it* Witness testimony* From Washington: dialog or blacklist?* Primakov: step one, a cease-fire* Lord Judd: no military solution* Perspective: Moscow still rules out negotiations NEWS

As in the case of previous large-scale bloody events in Moscow over the past decade--the 1991 August coup, the 1993 "October events," the "terror bombings" of September 1999--the events of October 23-26 of this year will likely be analyzed and discussed for a long time.... MORE

Media reported on October 30 that Russian Minister of Health Yury Shevchenko had asserted categorically that the gas the Special Forces used in storming the Moscow theater on October 26 had been based on fentanyl, a fast-acting opiate with numerous medical applications. The compound, Shevchenko... MORE

On October 31, I received a telephone call from one of his readers, Professor A. Heyndrickx, director of International Reference Laboratories in Ghent, Belgium, a specialist on toxicology and a UN expert commissioned to examine the remains of victims of Yugoslav war crimes in Kosovo.... MORE

Agents of the [Russian] Special Services were in Baraev's Band," journalist Murat Khairullin wrote in the October 29 issue of Moskovskie Komsommolets. A man in his forties had asked for a meeting with a correspondent from the newspaper and had then identified himself as an... MORE

On October 31, representatives of the Russian special services and the Russian Procuracy presented to the press their version of what had happened at the theater center at Dubrovka. "A representative of the FSB confirmed the version that the terrorists did in fact have enough... MORE

The terrorists," correspondent Ol'ga Allenova hypothesized in the October 28 issue of Kommersant Vlast, "did not intend to die. Otherwise there would have been absolutely no reason for them to wear masks. They were waiting for something to happen." Three correspondents wrote in the October... MORE