Former FSB Chief Patrushev Blames Rescue Services for 2002 Hostage Deaths Russia’s long-buried Nord-Ost tragedy is back in the spotlight, and this time the blame game is not between the state and its critics, but inside the state itself.

Former FSB chief and current presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev now insists that it was the rescuers — not the security services he commanded — who caused many of the 2002 Dubrovka theater deaths. He claims FSB units “performed professionally,” while “other services” panicked, botched coordination, and mishandled the antidote to the secret gas used in the assault, allegedly giving some hostages no dose and others a double dose — “that is what led to the casualties.”

Opposition and independent outlets frame this not as a revelation, but as an attempted rewrite. Meduza stresses that Patrushev headed the FSB and oversaw the assault, yet now shifts responsibility onto rescue workers who entered after special forces, formally under then–Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu. Novaya Gazeta Europe is even blunter in its headline: Patrushev “blames the Ministry of Emergency Situations, then led by Shoigu, for the deaths of hostages in ‘Nord-Ost.’”

Where Patrushev praises “professional” FSB performance, opposition coverage counters with the European Court of Human Rights’ finding that Russian authorities themselves violated hostages’ right to life by failing to warn doctors about the gas in time, leaving medics unable to provide proper care. That ruling ordered compensation and a new investigation — which was never carried out.

So on one side: a powerful insider protecting the reputation of the security services while implicitly targeting Shoigu, now weakened and reassigned to the Security Council. On the other: independent media and prior court findings pointing back at the state’s own secrecy and impunity. Both talk about confusion and failure — but sharply disagree on who, exactly, should pay for it.