How The School Was Stormed

On October 7 the Russian daily newspaper Novaya Gazeta published a commentary by its columnist Pavel Felgenhauer headed Как штурмовали школу (How The School Was Stormed). The article makes the claim that right from the start, the Russian authorities wanted to solve the issue of Beslan by military means, in complete disregard for the number of victims. Felgenhauer backs up his assertion with detailed evidence, including photographs of the housings of grenade launchers, which bear an extremely close resemblance to "Shmel'("Bumblebee")rocket flamethrowers, that were found on the roof of a house opposite the the school. It seems that the firing at the school, full of hostages, was done with projectiles that cause volumetric explosions. This may explain, the article suggests, how a number of hostages "disappeared without trace".

Some excerpts (in my translation):

In Russia today it is practically impossible to keep anything secret for very long. Local inhabitants and military personnel in Beslan, having talked to the [Beslan parliamentary] commission, continue to talk as they did then, in rather open terms. The information and rumours flow on, and get into print. The official version of the events of 1-3 September, which right from the outset was full of inner contradictions and incongruities, is falling apart before our eyes.

After it became clear that some 90 percent of the hostages were wounded or killed, the authorities began to claim that in fact no storming had been prepared, that the Spetsnaz had merely hung about around the school for three days, and then been compelled to act according to the situation, hence the casualties – including those among fighters of the FSB “Vympel” and “Alfa” units. It was stated that the terrorists “shot children in the back”, although no proof of this was ever presented. The nature of the battle, in which anyone who felt like it could take part, makes it impossible to determine precisely who was hit “in the back” and who simply fell in the crossfire. This does not, of course, justify the terrorists, who exposed children to death and bullets.

More and more proof is emerging that right from the start what was prepared in Beslan was not a special operation to free the hostages, but a military operation to destroy the fighters at any price. According to the official chronology of events, at 2.02 pm on 3 September several explosions occurred in the school, apparently by accident, and some of the hostages made their escape. The Ossetian militiamen and “home guard volunteers” [opolchentsy] began firing, but phone calls to the terrorists continued to come from the operational command, offering a ceasefire, and only at around 3pm did the Spetsnaz of the FSB launch a storming of the building. And by 3pm on 3 September the operational command was already boldly informing the news agencies that the school had been taken by the Spetsnaz, and that the hostages were free. In reality, however, the battle continued for a whole 12 hours.

Felgenhauer gives some details about the appearance of the Mi-24 assault helicopter which appeared during the siege, suggesting that it must have been prepared in advance:

The heavy armed helicopter could not have appeared on the scene so quickly if it had not been prepared for flight at a definite time, and the crew previously instructed about the location and order of the battle. Now, according to the testimony of local people, it emerges that the Mi-24 did not simply launch a barrage, but also carried out air-strikes around Beslan on 3 September.

The Mi-24 is only able to fly and fire accurately during the daytime and in good weather. So tanks of the 58th Army, which were used for point-blank firing, were brought to Beslan, most probably in advance. Anyone who has seen the footage of the battles in Moscow in 1993 will be able to imagine what point-blank tank fire in an urban environment is like.

Felgenhauer claims that “Shmel’” (Bumblebee) rocket flame throwers with thermobaric warheads (the RPO-A) were used by the Russian troops attacking the school, and concludes:

In using the “Shmel’” the Spetsnaz obviously supposed there was no one left alive in the building. The chances of saving anyone in a besieged school during the course of an operation that involved the use of tanks, air power and flamethrowers were truly small.

The whole of my translation of the article can be read
here. There are also some messages on the board that supply some supplementary text that wasn't included in the translation.