ECO-TERRORES
Death in Moscow: The Aftermath
And yet as I write, three weeks after the storming of the Dubrovka House of Culture, no satisfactory explanation has been given either by the FSB [Federal Security Service] or Putin himself, and none appears to be forthcoming. [...]
About two dozen former hostages remain hospitalized, while hundreds of others who have already been discharged will undoubtedly suffer for years from the various physical and psychological side effects of their captivity and its startling denouement. (Nine members of the assaulting forces are also officially listed as injured by the gas.) Meanwhile, Moscow continues to be deluged by rumors - mainly circulating on Russian Web sites - of other former hostages who remain unaccounted for. Some accounts put their number as high as seventy-seven. If the final death toll rises above two hundred, perhaps more Russians will ask - as a few brave critics already have begun to do - whether the method used was really well chosen.