Kursk Down Read online

  Once in Murmansk, however, preparations improved. There were no available hotel rooms. Media representatives had most of those. So many family members were lodged with local citizens.

  On the morning of August 22, all was set for the meeting with President Putin. For security reasons, the session was held in the closed town of Vidyaevo.

  Just one TV network, government-run RTR, was present, with a single camera. To handle the feedback to the broadcast center in Moscow, since there was no satellite transmitter available in the tightly controlled town, RTR used a remote truck from RTL, a German telecaster. This allowed the RTL Moscow bureau chief to view actual real-time coverage of the closed session. He was quoted as saying, “The only camera that was there belonged to RTR. At the same time, the head of the state broadcasting company, Oleg Dobrodeyev, was personally sitting in the RTL transmission van, controlling every frame that was sent to Moscow.”

  TV coverage was said to have depicted a sympathetic president consoling the bereaved relatives and family in a calm atmosphere.

  Only a few reporters were present for the meeting. No tape recorders were allowed. However, according to several reports in The Moscow Times, one journalist secretly taped the session. And what purports to be a transcript of the exchange appeared in the Russian press. In the account it is clear that President Putin had not anticipated the degree of anger and resentment confronting him.

  The session opened badly. Putin noted that he had a meeting at Fleet Headquarters and thought he should see the family group first.

  Questions were shouted, objections yelled, Putin was interrupted, and people hollered at each other. The meeting appeared to have ended leaving many unsatisfied and a bit shocked.

  In summary, the president proposed a financial settlement to the families based on 120 months’ pay of an average military officer. This caused an immediate and lengthy debate over what an average officer earned. Putin also agreed to make at least one of the Dagdizel specialists who had been on the Kursk part of the crew so that individual’s family would qualify for compensation.

  Each family was awarded an additional 725,000 rubles (a little more than $26,000) along with housing anywhere in the country. Many charitable funds were also being set up to help relatives of Kursk victims.

  Inadvertently, this effort to mollify the relatives of those lost men was to have a far-reaching effect. News of money being paid to ease the lives of the Kursk relations caused a backlash from mothers whose sons had died fighting in Chechnya.

  Relatives of soldiers and sailors killed in the line of duty didn’t question that Kursk crew members’ families deserved reparation. Compensation was expected as part of the system. Family units losing a member receive the standard 120 times the deceased’s monthly salary, to be divided among immediate family. Each family member also received an insurance settlement of 25 times the serviceman’s monthly pay. And a lump sum amount was allowed for funeral expenses.

  The upgrading of benefits to families of those who died on the Kursk to officer level for the purposes of fixing compensation, along with the $26,000, and guarantee of housing, seemed inequitable to many.

  Their discrimination cause was quickly taken up by Pravo Materi, the Foundation for a Mother’s Right, a volunteer organization formed in 1989 to provide legal aid to families of soldiers killed in uniform.

  During the meeting, Putin also spoke harshly several times about the media, accusing them of falsehoods and taking advantage of the disaster for political gain. After reading the meeting transcript, some commentators felt he did not take criticism very well. Nor did the president have a satisfactory answer to the question of how and where qualified relatives should apply for the settlement. And one interesting press criticism concerned Putin’s use of vulgar language.

  According to a translation of the transcript, Putin stayed with the Navy line. During a confused exchange, he placed blame for the disaster on a collision or perhaps a mine or possibly an onboard explosion, which he noted specialists thought very unlikely although theoretically possible.

  Several of the relatives clearly did not want to believe the entire crew was dead. There were calls to cancel the National Day of Mourning. However, as Putin pointed out, it was already Wednesday, August 23, the scheduled day, in some parts of Russia. He suggested instead that he forward the families’ request that TV coverage not expand by playing requiems.

  Perhaps the most chilling and unnerving incident of the entire turbulent day took place during a later press conference. A woman identified as Nadezhda Tylik, mother of Senior Lieutenant Sergey N. Tylik, who was the electric navigation party commander on board the Kursk, attended a post-meeting press conference. She began shouting at Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov. The television camera caught the action. A naval officer slipped to her side. A woman, armed with a long-needled hypodermic syringe, moved behind Mrs. Tylik and injected her with what was reportedly a sedative. As Mrs. Tylik said later, the shot made her instantly unable to speak. She dropped to the floor and was carried out. A Navy official told several journalists that it was not as big a deal as the West made it. “We are simply protecting the relatives from undue pain—it was for her own protection.”

  To counter the bad publicity, her husband, Nikolai, a 20-year submarine veteran who spoke after the meeting, maintained he had requested that his wife be sedated because he feared for her health. Months later, according to several news services, Mrs. Tylik said Nikolai later told her he had lied to save her from getting further upset. He had not asked that she be sedated.

  While the meeting and that entire day had been somewhat messy, subsequent opinion polls in Russia indicated it did little to harm Putin’s popularity. Findings reported by the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Research (VtsIOM) showed their sample lowered approval of his overall job performance from a peak of 73 in July to 65. Considering the length and depth of media attacks on his performance during the Kursk disaster, the loss was surprisingly small.

  While President Putin was dealing with the families, who were demanding to know why he had not personally taken charge of the recovery effort, another unusual event was developing.

  Later that same day, August 22, Minister of Defense Igor Sergeyev, along with Admirals Kuroyedov and Popov, submitted their resignations. The following day, President Putin spoke on RTR TV. He noted the resignations and made it clear he had refused to accept them. He said he did not intend to fire anyone without having a clear establishment of guilt. Many responded to that position with knowing looks. They understood about Russian resignations.

  Putin was quoted as saying that rather than blaming these officials, anger should be directed at those who had destroyed the Army, Navy, and the state. By this, he clearly meant the group labeled oligarchs. The “oligarchy” is a class of superwealthy businessmen, created after the fall of the Soviet Union during the process of modernization and democratization. Some of these powerful men gained their wealth through political connections and shrewd business deals, putting together vast commercial empires by acquisition of cheap state assets. Oligarchs were blamed by the Kremlin for corruption of the media, the legislature, and the judicial branch, along with skimming profits from state resources, stealing by tax avoidance, and much more.

  The national day of mourning was painful, as a country publicly showed its grief. Keeping with tradition, mourners flocked to Russian Orthodox churches. Candles were lit and thousands upon thousands said prayers for the dead and their loved ones. The event was so sobering the press paused in its pointed criticism of how badly the entire disaster had been handled.

  23–31 August 2000—Moscow

  On Wednesday evening, August 23, during the appearance on RTR TV in which he rejected the resignations of Sergeyev, Kuroyedov, and Popov, President Putin was somber. He revealed that he felt a personal responsibility for the loss of the Kursk and her crew. He assured the Russian people that those at fault would be identified and punished. When questioned about the meeting in Vid
yaevo with the families, he responded by saying words were not enough; they were difficult to find. He wanted to wail.

  Devoted to his goal of improving morale in his country, he blamed the negative press on two media magnates who wanted political gain. He also noted that Russia had survived a lot and would overcome this loss to be great once again.

  While not mentioned during the TV interview but hinted at in other ways, plans were being laid. There was one act that would hopefully stem the aggressive media pressure on the government and the military. The deep desire expressed over and over during the meeting with the families was to have the bodies of their loved ones retrieved.

  To accomplish this recovery, and satisfy the living, would be no small task. Conditions inside the Kursk were dangerous for divers. Debris was strewn throughout the boat and the workers would have to be careful not to snag their diving suits or long umbilical hoses as they moved about. Entry into some of the spaces and compartments would require cutting holes through the double hulls. The project would be expensive, risk lives, and take time. It would also require weeks to set up. It had to be done, though. From the standpoint of media relations and the grieving families, the sooner the better.

  Twelve days after the accident, on August 24, a Thursday morning, a formal memorial service attended by the relatives took place in Vidyaevo. Groundbreaking for a monument to the Kursk and its lost crew was part of the ceremony.

  Relatives who wished could also participate in shipboard rites at the disaster site. Wreaths were lowered into the sea. Sad, gray-faced widows, children, mothers, and fathers stood in a tight group against the chill wind. Their tearful eyes were focused on the water, as if each were trying to peer into the depths for a last view of their loved ones.

  A Russian Orthodox priest and a Moslem cleric gave prayers for the deceased. Then the ship made a slow circle around the spot now marked with floral tributes and sounded its horn before returning to port.

  Concurrent with the various memorial tributes and with little public fanfare, military prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the tragedy. A short while later, one of the panel’s lines of inquiry was fed to the news media. The committee was looking into charges that human error had been the decisive cause of the sinking. The accident could have been due to a “violation of safety rules.”

  This leak, preplanned or not, was the first inkling that the collision theory might not have gained a united front throughout the Russian military organization.

  The memorial services appeared to mark a slowdown in the news value of the Kursk disaster. During the next few days there were only stories of minor interest or concern on the accident. The government Emergency Situations Minister Sergey Shoigu indicated that a program was moving forward to establish several sea-rescue centers to handle any future accidents.

  Of specific importance to the Kursk, reports began to surface about sabotage on the submarine by pro-Chechen militant rebels from Dagestan. Russian troops had been fighting to quell a revolutionary movement in Chechnya. A terrorist group claimed the submarine was sunk by one of the crew who came from Dagestan. Since only one crew member and the two torpedo experts from Dagdizel had Dagestan connections, this was a rather pointed accusation.

  Actually, sabotage stories had been surfacing before this release. The earliest had been from the Ukraine and appeared immediately after the early news about the submarine being down. That story also assigned the reason for the disaster to a terrorist group.

  The sabotage concept reinforced what was already fact. An explosion occurred on board the Kursk. Sabotage, as a cause of that explosion, was in several ways better than the collision theory. Here too, blame for the catastrophe was attributed to a foreign source. If that foreign source was hostile to Russia, so much the better. That theory would reiterate to the Russian people that enemies of their nation are ruthless—and that Russia needs military strength for self-protection. Therefore, funding the military should and must take top priority.

  In order to follow all leads, or to give the seemingly groundless sabotage rumors a degree of official credence, the Russian FSB, their Federal Security Service, was called in to investigate. Dagdizel, which had almost slipped from sight concerning the Kursk, was now back in the center ring. The acting director of Dagdizel, Rustam Usmanov, was quoted in The Moscow Times defending the Dagdizel experts on board: “These two people were patriots on a sacred mission. Only scum could say that they were kamikaze bombers, and the scum must be drowned in junk.” Another spokesperson called the investigation unwarranted and provided the names of the two experts who had perished, calling them “saints!”

  27 August 2000

  First morning light came early to Moscow. The skyline of the city is a mix of old and new buildings. One of the newest, its towering spire topped by a TV mast, rose high above all others. It was a minaret redefined by modern architecture. For the last three decades, the Ostankino Tower had been a Moscow landmark. At a little over 1,700 feet from the tip of the antenna to the ground, it was the second tallest broadcast mast in the world. The Seventh Heaven restaurant and an adjacent observation deck had made this a tourist destination. Housing transmission systems for TV and radio signals to some 18 million people in the Moscow area, the structure was also a key element in providing service for 16 of Moscow’s 25 paging companies.

  During the early afternoon, at 1520 hours Moscow time, a fire, thought to have been caused by a short circuit, broke out. The blaze started in a narrow part of the tower, some 300 feet above the restaurant. Muscovites could see dense smoke issuing from the concrete structure from all over the city. The built-in fire extinguishing system either malfunctioned or ran out of foam, allowing the blaze time to intensify.

  Most tower visitors were safely evacuated. A few people, identified as firefighters and an elevator operator, were trapped inside an elevator car. Before they could be rescued, the car dropped almost a thousand feet, crashing in the basement several yards below street level. This, along with the fall of two more elevators, started a separate fire on the ground. The exact number inside the elevator was difficult to establish. The 300-ton elevator counterweight, traveling at a speed far exceeding 100 miles per hour, followed the car down the shaft and landed on top. When the doors were pried open, only fragments of bodies were found. Later forensic work revealed three had perished.

  In the end, 415 firemen worked nonstop and finally tapped out the fire after a grueling 26 hours of exhausting work. All their equipment had to be carried up endless steps as firefighters risked their lives working so high above the ground.

  Damage to the tower was staggering. Several experts questioned if the structure could ever be repaired. Others hoped it could be restored. But no one doubted the upset caused by this new disaster. Moscow suffered a massive broadcast radio and TV blackout. Only citizens with satellite dishes were able to receive programming. Paging was severely interrupted, affecting some police and emergency service units.

  Since the average Russian spends five hours a day viewing TV, loss of the medium had a huge social impact on the people of Moscow. Having the state-controlled channels off the air was intolerable to the politicians. Putin called for restoration of all services within a week. An emergency transmitter was attached to the building and three days later, RTR and ORT public television were back on the air, sharing a single channel.

  NTV, the privately owned TV provider, utilized its satellite signal delivery capability, and since the service had not been given antenna space on the now-burned tower, NTV also had a small transmitter in Moscow. The independent facility stayed on the air. Viewers with dishes, and many Moscow homes, could receive NTV programming, much to the chagrin of government leaders. Demand for satellite receivers quickly began to exceed supplies.

  From the government’s standpoint, there was one benefit from this added trouble. The fire took the focus off the Kursk catastrophe. Jokes about the fire, however, were pointed. Poking at the collision theory, one held that Washin
gton had officially “confirmed that no American TV tower ever came close to Ostankino!”

  When TV service was restored, though, the Kursk saga regained momentum.

  Each of the Kursk crewmen was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage medal. Captain Lyachin was given the Order of Hero of Russia. This, along with the monument being built by presidential decree, was seen by some as an effort to twist the Kursk catastrophe into a heroic event in which the men died defending their country. In a real sense, this was true. The men of the Kursk were brave. And they were on their country’s duty. The resistance came from a military overtone that hinted they were at war.

  The next event gave officials concerned with avoiding the placement of blame for the sinking another sabotage possibility. A Web site, operated by Chechen rebels, announced that their well-known field operations commander, Shamil Basayev, was behind the Ostankino blaze. According to the site, his command issued a statement that the rebels had paid a sum equal to $25,000 to an employee who worked in the tower. This individual supposedly carried out the act of terrorism that started the fire.

  The rebels’ Web site also again credited its militants with causing the Kursk disaster, repeating the story that a sailor from Dagestan had volunteered to destroy the sub.

  Even though the government responded with immediate denials, questions were once again being asked about the Kursk. What had the Government Inquiry Commission learned? When would a full report be made public? If the Chechen rebels were not to blame, who was?

  The situation smoldered for a few days. Then came September—and a news report from Berliner Zeitung, a respected German newspaper.

  1–15 September 2000