1/22/2024 0 Comments Russian submarine accident 2019![]() At that time Putin vowed to recover the crew and vessel. Putin had kept a low profile during the rescue phase and did not directly address the relatives of the crew until August 22. British and Norwegian divers successfully entered the Kursk on August 21 and found no survivors. Putin invited foreign assistance in the rescue operation. ![]() ![]() When President Vladimir Putin learned of the crisis while on vacation in Sochi, he created a State Commission under Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov to investigate the event. The Russian Navy's initial unwillingness to accept foreign assistance in the rescue operation and failure to get access to the Kursk undermined its credibility. The list, leaked to the newspaper Komsomolskaya pravda (Komsomol Truth), was published on August 18. The Russian Navy was also reluctant to publish a list of those on board the submarine. While there were reports of evidence supporting this thesis, none was ever presented to confirm the explanation, and both the United States and Royal navies denied that any of their submarines had been involved in any collision with the Kursk. The Northern Fleet and the Naval High Command in Moscow reported the probable cause of the disaster as a collision with a foreign submarine. It also falsely reported that communications had been reestablished with the submarine. The reports emphasized the absence of nuclear weapons, the stability of the submarine's reactors, and the low radioactivity at the site. On Monday, August 14, the Northern Fleet's press service began to report its version of the disaster. The rescue crews suggested three hypotheses to explain the sinking: an internal explosion connected with the torpedo firing, a possible collision with another submarine or surface ship, or the detonation of a mine left over from World War II. A Russian undersea apparatus reached the Kursk on Sunday afternoon and reported that the submarine's bow had been severely damaged by an explosion. ![]() On August 13 Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, commander of the Northern Fleet, conducted a press conference on the success of the exercise but did not mention the possible loss of the Kursk. The command of the Northern Fleet was slow to announce the possible loss of the submarine or to provide reliable information on the event. Russian undersea rescue units were dispatched to the site. Russian surface and air units began a search for the submarine and in the early evening located a target at a depth of 108 meters (354.3 feet) and about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the Northern Fleet's base at Murmansk. Shortly after the Kursk's last communication, Russian and Western acoustic sensors recorded two underwater explosions, one smaller and a second larger (the equivalent of five tons of TNT). Exercise controllers lost contact with the vessel and fleet radio operators failed to reestablish communication. The Kursk sank just after its commander, Captain First Rank Gennady Lyachin, informed the exercise directors that the submarine was about to execute a mock torpedo attack on a surface target. On Saturday, August 12, 2000, the nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine Kursk (K-141), one of Russia's most modern submarines, was lost with all 118 crewmembers during a large-scale exercise of the Russian Northern Fleet in the Barents Sea. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |