CONCLUSION

The numerous appeals submitted to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and judicial authorities, have convinced the victims that the Russian legal remedies remain largely inefficient. The case will probably never become a judicial matter in the proper sense of the word, at least for the simple reason that the special services took measures to destroy all the gunmen during the assault on the theater. And the death of those culpable gives grounds to terminate the investigation of the case. Another outcome is that it’s impossible to determine how and by agreement with what agencies the gunmen armed with various kinds of weapons and explosive materials managed to make their way to the center of Moscow and take hostages, unimpeded.

Numerous applications submitted by the victims to the President of the Russian Federation Mr. Putin containing demands to launch an impartial investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy and its consequences, yielded no result.

The urgency of this problem to the world community can hardly be downplayed. The precedent created at Dubrovka may be repeated once again. However, the case fatality rate and the grave aftereffects on the health of the hostages who survived the fentanyl derivatives gas attack, destroyed the myths and illusions about non-lethal agents that can be used without violating the human right to life. Connivance with the Moscow incident induces the states to use incapacitants for conflict resolution in the future.

A neglect for the lives of people is becoming a rather dangerous tendency in Russia. Having violated the right to life stated in Article 20 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the state is unwilling to admit liability for the actions of its representatives, is violating Article 6 of the Convention as well: «…everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law».

No impartial legal treatment of the special services’ actions, no due organization and implementation of rescue operations, and non-disclosure of evidences vital for the investigation into what happened at Nord-Ost — all this probably resulted in an even more horrible tragedy in Beslan, where over 300 people were killed, half of them being children.