On 11 September, a Friday evening , a 19-year old Russian conscript named Alexander Kuzminykh stole a submachine gun, killed eight of the sub's crew, then barricaded himself in the torpedo room.

The Bars-class [Akula] submarine was in port at Skalisty, near Murmansk. While Russian officials initially denied that the sub had any missiles or torpedoes, later reports indicated that she was indeed carrying weapons, possibly including nuclear weapons.

Using a chisel, Kuzminykh killed the armed sentry guarding the sub, took his weapon, and went below, killing five crewmen immediately and taking two more hostage. They were later killed. In addition to taking hostages, he threatened to start a fire in the torpedo room, detonating the weapons stored there.

According to several sources, after barricading himself in the torpedo room, officials brought his mother to the scene from St. Petersburg, who pleaded with Kuzminykh to give himself up. He refused, and a special antiterrorist unit of the Federal Security Service (the successors to the KGB) was deployed.

Early reports said that the unit stormed the torpedo room (a risky undertaking!), but later said that after a 20-hour standoff, Kuzminykh killed himself. There have been many shootings and other incidents since the fall of the Soviet Union, prompted by poor food and living conditions, and low or nonexistent pay. Junior enlisted men were brutalized under the old Soviet troop system, and conditions can only be worse now.

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