26th of October, about 02:00. Spetsnaz secretly entered the ground floor of the theater. Through walls they managed to install some cameras and most importantly – tanks with special paralyzing gas. The gas simply put almost everyone in the building asleep. 05:30, the operation started. Three controlled explosions opened the main entrance.
In complete darkness, Alpha and SOBR squads infiltrated the building. The whole operation took them 15 minutes. At 06:30, when all nooks and crannies of the building were proven safe, FSB stated that the building is under control and the terrorists are neutralized. Movsar Baraev was officially proclaimed dead.
7:00, the end of the threat. Rescue and medic squads entered the building. What they saw were blood, vomit, feces, dead and unconscious people everywhere. The rescue operation and transportation of victims to hospitals took several more hours.
It's hard to say what was the exact number of victims. Numbers vary from 130 to 212 of all 900 spectators. Most of them were killed by the gas,
according to BBC. Unexpectedly, it caused exacerbation of chronicle respiratory diseases. In chaos, most people didn't receive vital medical help and died after the rescue. 15 years after the incident, the "Nord-Ost" is still considered the most unsuccessful operation. What caused the fiasco – is a popular theme among conspiracy theories believers. Some officials say that the usage of gas was necessary – if the terrorists blasted their plastids, the building would collapse and bury all 900 people under tons of concrete. Some, otherwise, say that the gas was experimental and FSB simply wanted to test it in real battle conditions. Who is right and who is not remains unknown even after numerous experiments with the gas samples. World-famous scientists studied it's consistency and still couldn't answer, if it was the cause of people's death.