Telegram channel by Nikolai Rybakov, 3.09.2024

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

It is 20 years since the Beslan tragedy. Together with the Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Yabloko party, Kirill Goncharov, I came to the Moscow memorial to the victims of the Beslan [school attack].

On 1 September, 2004, terrorists took more than 1,000 hostages in a school in Beslan, [North Ossetia]. On 3 September, 2004, the storming of the school by security forces began.

As a result of the tragedy, 334 people died, most of them children.

The outright lies of the authorities and journalists from federal TV channels about the number of hostages in those days became the decisive factor for the storming of the school.

The security forces who failed the special operation to rescue the hostages have not been held accountable. The relatives and friends of the victims have not been able to achieve a fair investigation to this day. This silence, this inability of the state to point out those guilty of such an organisation of the storming of the school is a great pain for the residents of Beslan.

I visited this School No 1 twice, the very same gym where the terrorists held hostages. I was also at [the memorial to the killed children], the City of Angels. I cannot yet convey the feelings that I experienced there, and the time for internal awareness has not come yet.

On 20 August, 2024, the families of the dead and injured were graced with a meeting with the President to ask him their questions about the investigation. Vladimir Putin in his turn was surprised that the criminal case on the investigation of the terrorist attack had not yet been solved, promising to instruct the head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin to “sort it out”. I hope that this means that a real investigation will be conducted, and not that the case will be closed.

May the memory of the killed children live forever.