Further the Stringer cites materials from the RF Defense Ministry about NATO ships and planes in the area of the Barents Sea. “According to the data collected by radio intelligence and acoustic scanning two USA submarines were present in the area of training exercises of the Northern Fleet from August 7th to 12th. One of them was a Los Angeles-class, the other a Sea wolf-class. Also the Norwegian Navy ship Maryata and up to five Orion spying planes were involved. Right after the Kursk catastrophe the espionage activities of the above mentioned ships rapidly declined, which is not typical of NATO actions in such situations; in such cases they try to gather the most detailed information. Instead NATO ships left the training area and called at bases in Norway. /…/ The American submarines left the training area, but from that moment all information about these submarines ceased to enter. The Los Angeles-class submarine is called at a Norwegian base, where the crew is replaced. The whereabouts of the second submarine are not established. /…/ Estimations show that the solidity characteristics and also the constructive particularities of some US types of submarines allow versions, in which damages occurred during a collision do not lead to catastrophic consequences for the ramming submarine. In the situation with the Kursk submarine a situation is possible, in which the ramming submarine was ‘lifted’ and pushed to the surface by the Kursk after reaping its body, which gave the crew time for an active organization of rescue operations. /…/ Sea wolf-class submarines are considered more modern than Los Angeles-class ones. Their production was unfolded in the midst of the Cold War, after which the expensive project was folded. All submarines of that type were re-equipped as exercise trainers. All except for one. A Sea wolf-class submarine, the US Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) was modernized and given to the NATO forces. A new nuclear reactor was installed on it, making the sub more silent and invisible. The body was strengthened with ceramic and plastic, which augmented the diving capacity. The navigation equipment was replaced with a modern one with an ultrasound system. But the navigation remained Carter’s weak spot. The last of Sea Wolves was exclusively used for intelligence operations, since it was not equipped with a system of vertical launching of nuclear missiles.”
The day after Russia officially acknowledged the Kursk catastrophe, Great Britain, Norway and the USA proposed their help to rescue the sub crew. Great Britain’s Defense Minister Jeff Hoon made it twice and commenting it each time. The first time he said: “Concerning the version about the Kursk’s collision with a foreign submarine, this was certainly not a British submarine”. In the second: “At that time there was no ships of Great Britain’s Navy in the disaster area. Therefore they could not have been involved in a collision with the Kursk.” Nevertheless the NATO staff already knew that Russia knows about the collision of the Kursk with a US submarine. The entire day of August 16th information was circulating about talks and consultations between British and Russian militaries. Most probably they were sorting out the confusion that appeared in the beginning because of the official registration of the SNN-23 to the NATO. (There was also confusion in names. An attentive reader has probably already noticed that in one case the killer-sub is called Jimmy Carter and in the other Toledo. According to my sources, it was renamed Toledo and included in NATO’s naval group – E. L.) The day ended with an official request for help from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs only to Great Britain and Norway. And on August 17th Putin officially thanked Great Britain’s Premier Tony Blair for the help. Even Israel’s Premier Ehud Barak was awarded with gratitude. However the RF president has not said a word about the USA and Clinton.
Also on August 17th the Deputy Head of Staff of the RF Navy, the Vice-admiral Alexander Pobozhy held talks in Brussels with the commander of NATO’s united forces. At the end of the meeting it was declared that “complete mutual understanding” was reached. The national identity of the killer-sub was finally established. On August 18th the Rear-admiral Kraig Quigley from the Pentagon declared: “The Kursk accident does not say anything about the state of readiness of the Russian Navy. I would draw no such macro-conclusions from this or any other accident. They can occur for a variety of reasons to a variety of navies around the world. So I think our focus and our concern at this point is to try to rescue those crew members on board that submarine.” The result of admiral Quigley’s declaration was a change of tone in the Western press in its covering of the Kursk tragedy. Before this Western media wrote about “the end of the Russian Navy and Putin’s dreams about the rebirth of Russia’s naval glory”. After this a human and compassionate pattern started to dominate.
After August 21st, when the loss of the Kursk crew was declared, many heads of States have called Putin and presented him their condolences. Clinton called as well. One can only guess what they were talking about. The official information said that Putin “pronounced words of gratefulness and expressed his assurance in further mutual understanding”. In the beginning of September 2000 Putin has met with Clinton in New York.
It is interesting that it is from September 2000 that the Russian authorities have started to badly react on any information about a collision with an American killer-sub as the reason of the Kursk’s loss. Thus, on September 27th 2000 Linter cites an article in the Versia newspaper untitled “Version: Putin and Clinton have agreed to hide the truth about Kursk’s loss. The text says: “The authorities of Russia and USA knew that the reason of Kursk’s loss was a collision with an American submarine, but they hid this information in order to avoid an armed conflict. ” This information, together with a photo of an American submarine called at a Norwegian naval base for repairs soon after the Kursk accident was published by the Versia newspaper on September 26th. A Russian satellite made the photo on August 19th 2000, affirm the journalists. The same day Russia’s minister of defense was given a photo of a damaged American submarine called at Haakonsvern, a Norwegian naval base. At the same time the CIA director George Tenet arrived in Moscow with the purpose of hushing up a conflict that could lead to a war, the newspaper writes. Remember that the Russian media have made the supposition that the reason for the Kursk’s loss was a collision with Memphis, an American Los Angeles-class submarine. The photo shows a submarine precisely of that type, having serious damages in the frontal part, as the journalists found out. Probably it is the Memphis or the Toledo sub. And already on November 10th, two weeks later, the agency Echo of Moscow declared that – I am citing the title and the text – “Criminal charges were brought against the Versia newspaper for the publication of photos of an American submarine, which supposedly collided with the Kursk. A criminal case was opened in connection to the publication in the Versia newspaper of photos of an American submarine, which supposedly collided with the Kursk submarine, said the editor of Versia’s investigations section Dmitry Filimonov. He appears on the case as a witness. Friday a computer was confiscated from the newspaper offices. The confiscation was done after D. Filimonov was interrogated in Moscow district’s FSB as the author of an article, which said that the Kursk submarine has preliminary collided with an American submarine. /…/ ’The special services were interested in the satellite photos published in the newspaper. The photos show an American submarine called at a Norwegian naval base and showing clear signs of damage in the frontal part’, explained D. Filimonov. The special services are now trying to find out where did he get the photos. According to D. Filimonov, the newspaper received the photos from an anonymous individual who sent a disc with the information in an envelope.”