President Vladimir Putin with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, Georgy Poltavchenko, presidential envoy to the Central Federal District, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov and Vladimir Pronin, the Moscow chief of police.
Mr Putin called to focus efforts on securing the area around the site of the terrorist attack, on helping the hostages and giving support to their relatives.
“Terrorists are surely provoking us to introduce into our country the patterns they introduced in Chechnya in their time. We shall not succumb to those provocations,” Mr Putin said.