‘The Reputation of the Russian Navy Is Gone’

The crew members of the Kursk nuclear submarine felt true pride and honor to be serving in the Russian navy, according to those who knew and loved them, but the catastrophe that took their lives has left surviving navy comrades with a profound sense of shame and horror.

While the rescue effort was in progress during the past week, Russia’s navy struggled to stand united. But when Norwegian rescuers succeeded where the Russians had failed in opening a hatch on the submarine Monday, disgust boiled up among navy personnel. For submariners, grief was mixed with rage at evasions and contradictions from the naval command.

Capt. Vladimir Sokolov, who had the job of isolating 103 bereaved family members from the media when they arrived in Murmansk, above the Arctic Circle, on a chartered plane Monday evening, acknowledged that he felt ashamed of the navy’s false claims last week that it had the rescue operation in hand and had supplied oxygen and power to the submarine.

Alexei Borodikhin, a submariner on the Karelia--a vessel visited recently by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin--said the speed of the Norwegians in raising the hatch had humiliated the proud Russian navy.

Norwegian rescuers began work early Sunday, slightly more than a week after the accident, and had the hatch open by Monday afternoon. The Russians had not gotten close to opening it despite repeated efforts after the Aug. 12 disaster.

“I think that is that final piece of manure to be thrown on the reputation of the Russian navy. The reputation of the Russian navy is gone,” Borodikhin said. He feared that by expressing what he and many colleagues felt, he risked serious repercussions, but he felt strongly enough to do so anyway.

The grief began setting in already Wednesday at the submariners’ barracks at Vidyayevo, home to the Kursk, and another nearby base at Gadzhiyevo, he said. No one felt like eating, and many of the submariners tried to numb the pain with vodka.

“The top brass thought they were smart and they would be able to sort out the situation. They cared about their careers. They wanted some more stars. They didn’t think about the people involved,” Borodikhin said.

Even after the Norwegians had opened the hatch, Rear Adm. Valery Agafonov was still asserting late Monday that “our diving equipment and our rescuers are no worse than anyone else’s.” But in the next breath, Agafonov admitted that the navy had no divers capable of working on the rescue.

Asked why the Northern Fleet commander, Adm. Vyacheslav Popov, gave a news conference Aug. 13, the day after the accident, hailing the results of the naval exercises in which the Kursk sank, Agafonov insisted that the news conference preceded the accident.

Later Monday, in an admission of public responsibility rare within Russian officialdom, Popov sought the forgiveness of grieving families for failing to save the submariners.

“We did everything in our power,” he said. “Three thousand seamen took part in the rescue operation, but the circumstances turned out to be stronger than us.”

But Borodikhin said that the rescue was a Stone Age effort and that he was sure the navy knew it did not have the equipment it needed.

“They knew everything, but some people didn’t want to lose their jobs and lose their ranks--it’s better to bury the crew than allow the people to know the truth,” he said.

“The navy is excessively secretive and proud,” he said. “They’re scared to reveal so-called military secrets. But what military secrets can there be when a satellite can read what’s written on a matchbox?”

Inside the closed military base of Vidyayevo, Vladimir Korchagin, a captain, said the decline of the Russian navy is tragic.

“We used to think that we were the strongest and most powerful military power in the world, that we had the best navy,” he said. “After the accident with the Kursk, we understand that it’s not true anymore.

“We suffered a fiasco,” he said, comparing the Russian and Norwegian efforts.

Relatives of the crew who arrived on the charter flight were bused immediately to Vidyayevo. When they spilled out of the buses there, they were met with hugs and tears by family members who had preceded them.

Galina Kolomiytseva, from Mozdok near Chechnya in southern Russia, said she had given up hope for her 19-year-old son, Alexei.

“The rescue operation was unprofessional. It was conducted at a very poor level. They lost time, a crucial factor in such situations. I don’t know why they waited so long before they told the Norwegians what was happening,” she said. She added that families were treated very badly and learned about the disaster only through television.

“All I care about is to get the body of my son out of here and take him back home. He must have died a terrible death, and he deserves to be buried properly now,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Her son had wanted to serve in the navy to avoid the Chechen war, “but the grief got us here anyway. Alexei will never come back home, and I have to reconcile myself with it.”

Konstantin Argelade, a civilian deep-sea diving expert at the Russian Diving Co. in Murmansk, said the rescue was doomed because there were no divers in the navy or in Russia capable of descending to the 354-foot depth of the sunken submarine. The navy command knew it and should have called in foreign divers immediately, he said.

“They are not only morons, but they are absolutely immoral people,” he said. “The only explanation is that the naval command is totally incompetent when it comes to understanding rescue operations. They’re totally unfit for their jobs.”

He said running a fleet of submarines without professional deep-sea divers to carry out rescues is “like sending people to fly in planes and not having parachutes. It’s unacceptable.”

Times staff writer Dixon reported from Murmansk and special correspondent Kuznetsov from Vidyayevo.