All language subtitles for Black.Ops.S01E02.Night.of.Terror.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-NTb_track3_[eng]

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.