Pravda Calls Soviet Submarine Disaster a Product of Cold War

The Soviet submarine accident off Norway last month was a product of the Cold War and a scientific tragedy reminiscent of the Challenger space shuttle disaster, Pravda said today.

The official Communist Party newspaper said the accident, which left 42 dead, showed once again that “the Cold War, carried down into the ocean’s depths, devours not only billions of dollars, rubles, pounds and francs, but thousands of seamen’s lives too.”

Pravda devoted a full page today to the fate of the experimental submarine Komsomolets, which sank April 7 after a fire broke out on board.

“I would dare to say that the loss of this boat for our country means the same thing as the loss of the shuttle Challenger for the United States,” wrote correspondent Nikolai Cherkashin.

“The Komsomolets was the first hydro-cosmic orbital station, so to speak. It carried torpedoes only because there was no getting away from the ongoing naval confrontation,” Pravda said, adding that “the Komsomolets could have been a prototype of a new kind of sea transport. Its crew were actually experimenters.”

Western defense experts said soon after the submarine sank that top scientists probably were on board because of its experimental nature.

The Pravda article, which gave a minute-by-minute account of the accident, described how many of the sailors ended up in fatally frigid water without protective gear because they did not believe the submarine would sink.