On 23 October 2002, a group of about 50 Chechens seized a Moscow theatre and held hundreds of people hostage, threatening to shoot their captives and blow up the building if Russian security amassed outside the theatre attacked. Their demand, that the operations mounted by the Russian army in Chechnya cease, was not taken into account by the authorities who, from the outset, declared that they would not negotiate. The crisis was brought to an end when special troops stormed the theatre, using gas in order to incapacitate the hostage-takers, and averted the detonation of a massive explosion that might have killed all the hostages. Up to 40 Chechens were killed as well as 129 theatregoers.
