In the afternoon , the gunmen allowed Ruslan Aushev , respected ex-President of Ingushetia and retired Soviet Army general , to enter the school building and agreed to release 11 nursing women and all 15 babies personally to him . The women 's older children were left behind and one mother refused to leave , so Aushev carried out her child instead . The rebels gave Aushev a video tape made in the school and a note with demands from their purported leader , Shamil Basayev , who was not himself present in Beslan . The existence of the note was kept secret by the Russian authorities , while the tape was declared as being empty ( which was later proved incorrect ) . It was falsely announced that the hostage-takers made no demands . In the note , Basayev demanded recognition of a " formal independence for Chechnya " in the frame of the Commonwealth of Independent States . He also said that although the Chechen separatists " had played no part " in the Russian apartment bombings of 1999 , they would now publicly take responsibility for them if needed . Some Russian officials and state-controlled media later attacked Aushev for entering the school , accusing him of colluding with the hostage-takers
Russian apartment bombings of 1999
Russian apartment bombings
Beslan school siege