Moscow theatre siege: Ask BBC's correspondent in Moscow

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One hundred and fifteen of the 117 hostages who were killed when Russian troops stormed a Moscow theatre on Saturday died from gas poisoning, it has been admitted.

The statement came as the Russian authorities came under heavy pressure to reveal details about the type of gas used by special forces in their assault on the theatre.

President Vladimir Putin went on television late on Saturday to apologise for the deaths.

Up to 50 Chechen rebels were killed during the attack, but it remains unclear how many of them died from the effects of the gas, and how many were shot dead.

Were the authorities right to use force and gas to end the siege? How should Russia deal with the Chechnya question?

You put your questions to the BBC's Jonathan Charles who has been covering the story in Moscow, in a live interactive forum.

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Transcript

Newshost:
Hello and welcome to this BBC News Online interactive forum. I'm Paul Reynolds. Today has been declared a day of national mourning in Russia in memory of the 117 hostages killed during Saturday's operation to end the Moscow theatre siege.

But there's growing anger in the country over the way Russian special forces used gas to overpower the rebels. It's being confirmed that all but two of the dead were killed by the gas. Hundreds of rescued hostages are in hospital, many in a critical condition.

So did President Putin make the right decision? Should a substance have been used in such an indiscriminate way?

We've been receiving your e-mail questions from across the UK and from our online audience abroad. Here to answer them is the BBC correspondent, Jonathan Charles, who joins us from our bureau in Moscow.

Jonathan, the first question is from Mir in Canada: Will we ever know how many Chechens were executed in cold blood inside the theatre? Or for that matter, how many hostages died by bullets?

Jonathan Charles:
Yes, I suppose that's one way of putting it Paul. I'm sure the Russian authorities would say they weren't executed in cold blood and that they were dealing with enemy who was determined to kill them.

Do we know the numbers? That's a very, very difficult one. The initial numbers were very confused. It now looks as though 40 of the Chechen group died - men and women. Some put up a stiff resistance despite the gas which had been sprayed into the theatre and were killed in fighting.

It looks to me as well on some of the pictures as though some of the Chechen women in the auditorium were asleep when they were killed. The gas had put them to sleep. They were still sitting in their chairs and then, I think, they probably were shot by a single bullet through the head by the armed forces whilst they were asleep.

They claim to have two or three of the Chechens under detention and then there were a few confused reports saying some Chechens were still wandering Moscow - they'd disappeared - but there's been very mixed reports about that. Some people in the security service say some Chechens did get away - others were saying they didn't.

Newshost:
Here's a question that relates to the whole gas issue which is so central to this. It's from someone who didn't leave their name but it represents a general question: Why haven't they told the doctors what gas they used and how to treat it?

Jonathan Charles:
Yes, it's certainly causing a huge amount of fury. I was down at one of the hospitals where the doctors were saying they were still groping in the dark. They were giving general treatments for gas poisoning. In fact one former hostage, we've been talking to, said that doctors, when he'd come round, had said: we don't know what sort of gas it is, we're giving you a treatment which is basically just keeping you awake - not letting you fall asleep and giving you milk - that's what we've been told to do. So there was no real medicine given to them in the first few minutes.

Why aren't the Russians saying more than that? I think part of it is traditional Russian secrecy, going back to Soviet times. I really think that when it comes to military matters, they don't like giving more away than they really have to. They think at some stage in the future perhaps they might want to use this gas again - they don't want people to know precisely how it works.

There is another possibility as well which has come from, I suppose, some rather more cynical quarters, and that is that this may have been a gas which was banned under one or other of the international treaties and that's another reason they don't want the international community to know.

Talking to experts here, they all say they think it's a nerve agent which was produced during the Cold War - an experimental nerve agent. It was designed for use against fit, young, healthy soldiers rather than for use in this sort of police action.

Newshost:
What about the issue of the anger among the relatives and the public in general about this issue - is there such an anger?

Jonathan Charles:
I think there is. You talk to relatives and they're very angry obviously - particularly relatives of the dead - that this gas was used, as they would put it, as a chemical warfare experiment. They think that the dead were used as guinea pigs.

On the other hand you talk to some people, particularly some of the former hostages and they say things were getting very tough when we were hostages - things were getting very tough in there - very tense. Although it's very sad that so many people died, we don't think there was any other way than to storm the building and if it required gas - it required gas.

But then I spoke to one other Russian who said to me this morning - you know it shows that life is very cheap in this country. That the government and the armed forces - they don't care about the general civilian population and they were reckless and they don't really care about that - they regard life as very cheap.

Newshost:
Suresh Aboodas, London: Do you think that more thought was given to Putin's survival at the helm of Russian affairs than to the lives of innocent and ordinary people? Now Putin can boast of crushing the terrorists. But at what cost?

Jonathan Charles:
That's a very difficult question to answer. I think President Putin was very keen to be a strong leader - that's his whole image, that's what it rested on. He was really brought to power on the back of his tough action in Chechnya - restarting the military campaign down there back in October 1999 when he was then prime minister before Boris Yeltsin stepped down to allow him to become president.

So I think that Chechnya is a central issue for him - he couldn't afford to be weak. But you have to remember I don't think any government could have negotiated on the Chechen demands. The Chechens were saying they wanted independence for Chechnya. They were threatening to shoot people unless they got those negotiations.

I think any government anywhere in the world wouldn't have wanted to negotiate like that because they know if they give in on one single issue like this then there may be other interest groups which come forward in future who say we've got this particular interest, we're going to threaten to shoot hostages unless you negotiate with us. Once you're weak, you're weak and President Putin knows that.

So I think he had more than his own personal survival in mind. I think we can be charitable on this one. I think he is now saying we have to be very tough - it's allowed him to toughen his position and he may benefit in other ways.

He's issued a very tough statement today in which he talks about giving no mercy to people he describes as terrorists. He says that they are growing bolder, growing crueller - they have access to means which are as dangerous as weapons of mass destruction. Now I think what he's doing here is he is sending a message to the Russian people firstly that you have to be tough with these people, therefore that means sometimes difficult decisions will have to be taken, like Saturday's when the decision was taken to use gas. So you're fighting a difficult enemy in his view.

I think he's also using today's statement in another way. He's sending a message to Washington, to President Bush. When he talks about the international terrorism, as he puts it, using means as dangerous as weapons of mass destruction, he's saying, this is the real enemy - in his words, international terrorism - why are you worrying about Iraq and the UN resolution? This is the real enemy in your war on terror - it is international terrorism.

What do you think about that Paul, you're a former diplomatic correspondent? Those words seem to be quite well chosen to me.

Newshost:
Well I think there's a difference between tough on the terrorists and being secret with your own citizens. I can see on one hand your reply covers the tough element, but what about the secrecy element? Once the operation is over, what has not changed in Russia is that they keep people outside the gates of hospitals.

Jonathan Charles:
Yes, that was absolutely appalling. I've just come back now from one of the hospitals and there are still relatives outside in the pouring rain, not able to see the former hostages inside and also sometimes not even knowing whether they are inside or whether their relatives are dead or alive.

It's a brutal system that does that to people. I think people accept it far too readily here because of course they had years of it under communism. They don't challenge central authority very much - they're just not used to it - the government know that. I think Russian mentality, even now under President Putin, who in many ways wants to modernise the country, even he sometimes resorts to old government methods. They come naturally to him and it's a hard habit to break. That's why the secrecy is so intense. That's why in a way, people are treated so badly in these matters - their views are thought not to matter, they're thought to come secondary to the issue of national security.

Newshost:
Beverley Hotchkiss, Canada: The Chechen rebels were somewhat effective as it appears in that Russia's reputation has suffered and a continued war with Chechnya may be met with international protest?

So the Chechens have put this issue back on the agenda.

Jonathan Charles:
Yes, there's no doubt about that - this issue is firmly back on the agenda internationally and, I suppose, here in Russia. President Putin has been saying for the past two years - the war is won, we have everything under control down there, even though Russian soldiers have been dying all the time, even though the Chechen rebels fight Russians all the time - they launch attacks on Russian positions. He's managed to convince a lot of people that things are under control even though a lot of people also know they are not but they prefer to forget about that in Russia.

Now, I think we will see a tougher reaction from President Putin - we're already hearing it - there's a crackdown ordered today in Chechnya. The Russians claim to have killed 30 Chechen fighters. I think his view is that there is no point in having political dialogue, we have to be tough and that's what we're going to see from now on. So one reaction is rather than making life easier in Chechnya, as this group of Chechens wanted, their actions may well have worsened them.

Newshost:
David Bute, Ukraine: After watching Russian TV coverage of the siege and rescue operation, dead terrorist bodies were shown many times. I assume these pictures were not shown in UK and other parts of the world. Is this a deliberate attempt by the Russian authorities to show to future "terrorists-to-be" that "this could happen to you if you cross us"?

Jonathan Charles:
I think there are two issues here: one is on the nature of broadcasters. There are some broadcasters in the world, like the BBC, which take a particular view of showing dead bodies in that we try not to. We think sometimes some images are too gruesome and shocking to be shown. There are other broadcasters - not just Russian but around the world - who often show close ups of rather shocking pictures that wouldn't be acceptable to the BBC. So I think that's one issue - that's an editorial issue.

On the Russian government view: I think, in a way, they were using some of these pictures to make a particular point. They wanted these pictures broadcast. They wanted the images, for example, of the Chechen women with what were thought to be explosives tied around their waists because that showed, in Russia's view, that they were dealing with very ruthless people - even women were willing to blow themselves up for the cause - the cause of an independent Chechnya.

Newshost:
Do you think at any stage a negotiation with those people was possible?

Jonathan Charles:
I don't think so. Once you start negotiating with people who are in effect holding hostages and saying, you negotiate or we shoot - it is a form of blackmail - Russia is right in that sense, you are negotiating at the point of a gun. And if you give in on one issue, they'll be many other people with grievances who'll think you're now weak and will try to exploit that. So I think any government would have done as President Putin did.

Newshost:
It's really raised international terrorism to whole new levels hasn't it because if you've got people who don't have demands but are simply interested in death - what do you do with them?

Jonathan Charles:
It's very hard to negotiate with people who make it clear from the very beginning that they don't expect to get out alive. They said it - I think they meant it. You only had to see the television pictures which were taken while the siege was underway by one Russian TV crew who were allowed in. These people really meant what they were saying. They looked calm, they looked in control of themselves, they looked as though certainly their leader had come to terms with the idea of death. They felt that committed to what they were doing. It's impossible really to deal with people who are irrational. It's very difficult for any government to deal with that and that's why I thought right from the very start, one way or the other, this was going to end very nastily - which is what happened in the end.

You're dealing with people who have only one central demand - an independent Chechnya, that's was all they were demanding, they didn't have any peripheral demands - it was negotiate with us or everyone dies and we're quite happy to kill everyone and kill ourselves too. That's the departure, I suppose, from the terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s when Palestinian groups, for example, were often hijacking things. The Palestinian hijackers, I don't think, were willing to die necessarily. They thought they might die but they didn't go on planes thinking it was inevitable.

Newshost:
What about the Chechen issue itself - any new ideas do you think from the Russians now in the light of this or is it going to be even more of the same military pressure?

Jonathan Charles:
I think it's very difficult. I think it is possible and they have held some private talks and a few exploratory talks with the moderate side of the Chechen leadership - and I'm thinking particularly of Aslan Maskhadov who was Chechnya's elected president who is now a fugitive. They tried to hold some sort of talks with his representatives but the difficulty is that they don't mind, I think, exploring with moderate Chechens. But the trouble is those moderate Chechens, like Maskhadov, don't control the wilder groups like the one that had the hostage situation here. They don't control the more fundamentalist wing of Chechen fighting. S0o therefore you can come to agreement with the moderates but it will mean nothing whilst you've got these very tough groups operating on Chechen soil - these guerrilla bands.

I think that's what makes this so insoluble. There are so many people there, so many groups that are willing to fight on until they get what they want - this independent Chechnya. I think President Putin's taken the view that political dialogue is impossible - the only thing is military repression and hope to bring stability that way and try to make life better that way. I don't genuinely think he wants a long-term war in Chechnya - he knows it's bad for Russia - lots of Russians are dying, it's not good for his image if he can't bring all of this under control. He would like to improve life in Chechyna but he is certainly not willing to grant any more than limited autonomy in Chechnya.