The hostage-takers issued an ultimatum threatening to kill the hostages unless their demands, including an end to the Chechen war and beginning of direct negotiations with Chechen rebel leadership, were met. Russian President Boris Yeltsin immediately vowed to do everything possible to free the hostages, denouncing the attack as "unprecedented in cynicism and cruelty."
On June 15, Basayev demanded that journalists be let into the hospital building to conduct a press conference, but when Basayev found the Russian authorities to be too slow in granting his request, he ordered six hostages killed (three helicopter pilots, two police officers and an official of military registration and enlistment office). Only after this journalists were passed into the hospital. Fearing for their lives, the hospital staff helped other policemen and pilots disguise themselves in civilian clothes and to appear committed to the hospital by changing the hospital records.
Chechen commanders enforced firm discipline among their men and reported to hostages that they will strictly punish subordinates for the least attempt at any violence. A member of Chechen force who was found to be threatening the hostages while under influence of narcotics was immediately shot. The Russians attempted various tactics to break the standoff, from threatening to execute 2,000 Chechen civilians to using Basayev's brother to talk him out of it.
After several days of siege, the Russian MVD and FSB OSNAZ special forces tried to storm the hospital compound at dawn on the fourth day, meeting fierce resistance. A woman connected to artificial respiration apparatus died during the assault when the electricity to the hospital was disconnected. After many hours of fighting wherein more than 30 hostages were killed, unable to avoid the grenades the Russians were throwing in through the shot-out windows, a ceasefire was agreed on and 227 hostages were released.
A second Russian attempt to take control of the hospital few hours later also failed, resulting in more casualties. Russian authorities accused the Chechens of using the hostages as human shields
On June 18, negotiations between Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Shamil Basayev led to a compromise which became a turning point for the First Chechen War. In exchange for the hostages, the Russian government agreed to temporarily halt military actions in Chechnya and begin a series of negotiations.
The just-released hostages were especially angered by Boris Yeltsin's order to use force against the terrorists. Yeltsin meanwhile had gone to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the summit of the Group of Seven was being held. After meeting with Yeltsin, the seven condemned violence on both sides of the Chechen conflict.
On June 19, most of the hostages were released, and Basayev's group, under cover of 120 volunteer hostages (including 16 journalists and 9 State Duma deputies), departed for, and uneventfully reached, the Chechen village of Zandak near Chechnya's border with Dagestan. After these hostages were released, Basayev, accompanied by some of the journalists, moved to village of Dargo, where he was welcomed as a hero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budyonnovsk_hospital_hostage_crisis
It was done for a good cause and if Budyonnovsk didn't happen thousands more of Chechen civilians would have died. And notice how the Russians storm the building, kill a bunch of people and then accuse the Chechens like always, and the worst part is that everyone believes them and nobody will listen to the Chechens when they say that they're not the ones to be blamed because people rather hear what they want to believe and refuse to to even open their eyes and see the truth because they think Chechens and all muslims are terrorists and it just has to stay that way.
