A Leader of Rescue Effort Lost His Son on Sub

Capt. 1st Class Vladimir Geletin had the worst job in the world last week: He helped coordinate Russia’s vain efforts to save its sunken submarine, the Kursk, while his son was dead or dying on board.

His lower jaw set and his hands clasped together, Geletin spoke Wednesday of how his son Boris, 25, perished on the Kursk along with the rest of its crew of 118, and he pinned the blame for the calamity on the state of Russia’s crumbling military.

“This is hard for me to talk about, but I wanted to,” he told a news conference in Murmansk, a port above the Arctic Circle.

“Why? Because my honor as an officer and my memory of my son compel me to tell the truth,” said Geletin, his voice trembling.

He spent the last 10 days on board one of the navy’s rescue vessels in the Barents Sea, coordinating the “colossal work” to try to save his son, a lieutenant, and his comrades trapped on the seabed, 350 feet below the surface.

“We did everything we could, everything we could. Yes, the fleet does need good emergency rescue units, and we didn’t have them,” he said.

He lashed out at critical media coverage of the navy’s rescue effort. The navy has come under fire for making contradictory and unreliable statements.

“The fleet command always told the truth. . . . [At the beginning] nobody could say exactly what had happened to the vessel,” he said, explaining why initial navy reports played down the seriousness of the Kursk’s situation.

“Nobody could have said, ‘Right, the vessel is on the seabed, that means everybody is dead,’ ” he said.

He said he never gave up hope for Boris, even though his son served at the front of the vessel, which probably was flooded almost instantly.

“Only after the official announcement did I say, ‘My son has perished, along with his friends and comrades.’ I don’t know if you could find a man who could have said so earlier,” he said.