| Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis | |
| Partof: | the First Chechen War |
| Location: | Budyonnovsk, Stavropol Krai, Russia |
| Coordinates: | 44.7839°N 44.1658°W |
| Date: | 14–19 June 1995 |
| Type: | Hostage crisis |
| Fatalities: | 129 |
| Injuries: | 415 |
| Perps: | Chechen separatists led by Shamil Basayev and Aslambek Abdulkhadzhiev |
| Motive: | Forcing ceasefire in the war, securing safe return to Chechnya |
The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis (Russian: Теракт в Будённовске, teract [terrorist act] in Budyonnovsk) took place from 14 to 19 June 1995, when a group of Chechen separatists led by Shamil Basayev attacked the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk (alternatively transliterated as Budennovsk), near the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, during the First Chechen War of 1994—1996. After brief fighting in the city, Basayev and his men took over a local hospital complex where they gathered over 2,000 mostly civilian hostages, demanding a ceasefire in Chechnya and Russia to resume talks with the Chechen leadership. Following Russian government's failed attempts to respond to the situation by force, Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin personally agreed to Basayev's demands, securing the release of the hostages.
Shamil Basayev's group of more than 100 Chechen separatist smertniki (ready to die) fighters crossed from the south of embattled Chechnya through the Russian republic of Dagestan into the Russian republic of Stavropol Krai. They moved concealed in a column of three KamAZ military trucks and a police VAZ-2106 car, their drivers dressed as Russian servicemen and pretending to be bringing a "Cargo 200" load of corpses of dead Russian troops back from the war zone.
At about noon on 14 June, the column was stopped by the local police at Budyonnovsk, some 110km north of Chechnya, and ordered to drive to the city's main police station for an inspection. Having arrived there, Chechen fighters suddenly opened fire and emerged from the trucks, storming and capturing the police headquarters as well as the city hall, and raising Chechen flags over local administration offices. Over the next several hours, as Russian reinforcements arrived, the Chechens retreated to the residential district and regrouped in the city's main hospital, taking hostages on their way. During the clashes and on the way to the hospital, the attackers killed as many as 41 people, including police officers, soldiers, personnel from Budyonnovsk air base, and civilians.
At the hospital complex, which they mined and fortified, Basayev's 119-strong and well armed group held more than 2,000 people (some estimates are as high as 5,000[1]), most of them civilians, including 150 children and a number of women with newborn infants. Basayev issued an ultimatum, threatening to kill the hostages unless his demands were met. These included an end to the First Chechen War, an amnesty for Chechen fighters, and direct negotiations by Russia with the representatives of Chechen president Dzokhar Dudayev.[2] He also demanded that the Russian authorities immediately bring reporters to the scene and allow them to enter the Chechen position in the hospital. Russian authorities, in turn, threatened to kill 2,000 Chechen prisoners if Basayev did not surrender.[1] Russian president Boris Yeltsin immediately vowed to do everything possible to free the hostages, denouncing the attack as "unprecedented in cynicism and cruelty".[3] Over 300 hostages have been released through low level negotiations on June 14 and 15.
At about 8 pm on 15 June, the Chechens killed one hostage, a military registration and enlistment official.[4] On the next day (June 16), when the reporters did not arrive at the arranged time, five other male hostages were shot to death on Basayev's order.[5] The New York Times quoted the hospital's chief doctor that "several of the Chechens had just grabbed five hostages at random and shot them to show the world they were serious in their demands that Russian troops leave their land."[6] The five men taken outside to a courtyard and shot were, according to conflicting reports, either five military helicopter pilots,[1] [7] or three pilots and two policemen.[4] [8] Basayev himself explained the choice of the pilots as a result of his personal "special relationship" with them,[9] meaning the death of his wife, child, and sister in an airstrike two week earlier, which he had sworn to avenge.[1] Russian security minister Sergei Stepashin called the reports of the execution "a bluff". Later, however, Russian authorities relented and allowed a group of journalists to enter the hospital for a press conference, at which Basayev repeated his demands publicly.[2]
On the third day of the siege, Russian authorities ordered the security forces to retake the hospital compound. The task was given to a grouping of MVD and FSB special forces, including the elite units Alfa and Vympel, supported by armoured vehicles and armed helicopters. The Russians attacked at dawn of the next day (June 17), meeting fierce resistance. After several hours of fighting, in which many hostages were killed by crossfire, a local ceasefire was agreed on and Basayev released more hostages, including all pregnant women and nursing mothers with their children. A second Russian attack on the hospital a few hours later also failed, and so did a third, resulting in further casualties. The Russian authorities accused the Chechens of using the hostages as human shields. Yeltsin's human rights advisor Sergey Kovalyov described the scene: "In half an hour the hospital was burning, and it was not until the next morning that we found out what happened there as a result of this shooting. I saw with my own eyes pieces of human flesh stuck to the walls and the ceiling and burned corpses."[10] Nevertheless, some hostages have been freed by the Russian troops and Basayev soon released all remaining women and children. The both sides also agreed on the arrival of fire trucks and ambulances to the hospital in order to put down the fires and evacuate the dead.[4]
On 18 June, direct negotiations between Shamil Basayev and Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin led to a compromise which became a turning point for the First Chechen War. In a televised conversation with Basayev, Chernomyrdin agreed to halt military actions in Chechnya and begin top level talks with separatist leaders. He then signed the formal statement:
The agreement resulted in the release of 350 more hostages.[4] Yeltsin meanwhile had gone to the summit of the G8 in Canada. After meeting with Yeltsin, the Group of Eight condemned violence on both sides of the Chechen conflict. When asked about the crisis by a journalist, Yeltsin denounced the rebels as ″horrible bandits with black bands on their foreheads″ (″Это оголтелые бандиты, понимаешь, с чёрными повязками″).[11]
On 19 June, all remaining hostages were released. Basayev's group, along with over 100 volunteer hostages (including 16 journalists, nine State Duma deputies: Kovalev, Oleg Orlov, Mikhail Molostvov, Aleksandr Osovtsov, Valeriy Borshchev, Yuliy Rybakov and Viktor Borodin,[9] as well as other government officials, medical workers, and some previously released hostages) embarked six buses and went to Chechnya through North Ossetia and Dagestan. Despite the interior ministry general Anatoly Kulikov's rogue plot to eliminate Basayev in an ambush at the blocked Chechen border,[12] the column eventually reached the settlement of Zandak inside Chechnya near the border with Dagestan. The volunteer hostages were then released while Basayev, accompanied by some of the journalists, went on to the southern Chechen village of Dargo, Vedensky District, where he was welcomed as a hero.
According to official figures, at least 129 people were killed and 415 were injured (of whom 18 later died of their wounds) as the result of the attack.[13] One official death toll included 105 civilian, 11 police and at least 14 military fatalities.[8] However, according to an independent estimate as many as 166 hostages were killed and 541 injured in the special forces assaults on the hospital.[14] [15] A report submitted by Russia to the Council of Europe stated that the total 130 civilians, 18 policemen, and 17 soldiers have been killed, and more than 400 people have been wounded.[16] Basayev's force suffered 11 men killed and one missing; most of their bodies were returned to Chechnya in a refrigerator truck.
Over 160 buildings in the town were destroyed or damaged, including 54 municipal buildings and 110 private houses.[13] [17] Many of the former hostages suffered psychological traumas and were treated at a special facility in Budyonnovsk.
The government's handling of the Budyonnovsk was perceived as inept by many Russians. The State Duma passed a motion of no confidence by 241 to 72. However, this was seen as purely symbolic, and the government did not resign. Still, the debacle cost both Stepashin and interior minister Viktor Yerin their jobs; they resigned on 30 June 1995.
The raid is widely seen as the turning point in the war. It boosted morale among the hard-pressed Chechen separatists, shocked the Russian public, and discredited the Russian government. The initiated negotiations gave the Chechens the critically needed time to regroup and rearm. After the peace talks broke down and the hostilities resumes, the Russian forces never truly regained the initiative until the Chechen military victory in August 1996.
In the years following the hostage taking, more than 40 of the surviving attackers have been tracked down and killed, including Aslambek Abdulkhadzhiev in 2002 and Basayev himself in 2006. More than 20 were sentenced by the Stavropol territorial court to various terms of imprisonment.