On November 5th 2001 the site Dni.ru published the position of the Prosecutor General citing Interfax: “The Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov has again refuted the supposition that the Kursk submarine might have been lost after a collision with another submarine. According to Interfax, Vladimir Ustinov declared that at the present moment the investigation does not have any such supposition.”
It was to be expected that already in 2003, after the false conclusions of Klebanov’s commission, on February 6th “the Federal Security Service refuted claims that the FSB is putting under doubt the results of the investigation about the Kursk’s loss.” According to RIA-Novosti “The FSB refuted the claims of a Moscow newspaper that “the FSB is putting under doubt the investigation of the Kursk’s loss”. As RIA-Novosti informed Thursday in the FSB Center of Public relations, the information presented in the article of a Moscow newspaper in February 2003 does not correspond to reality.” When mister Putin’s FSB or mister Putin’s Prosecutor General refute something, RF citizens usually suppose that what is refuted is the truth.
Meanwhile, all the largest Russian naval specialists have unanimously and independently from one another said: yes, there was a collision with a killer-submarine.
Back in August 18th 2000 the former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, adm. Edward Baltin has declared this to Echo of Moscow. “The accident aboard the Kursk submarine took place in result of a collision; not with a dry cargo ship or an icebreaker, but with an American submarine.”
On November 16th 2001 the Izvestia newspaper has published a long interview with the Vice-admiral Mikhail Motzak, Chief of Staff of the Northern Fleet. The interview in Izvestia is followed by the newspaper afterword. Here it is: “The Vice-admiral Mikhail Motzak, Chief of Staff of the Northern Fleet was among the instructors of the training exercises during which the Kursk was lost. Today we are publishing a confession, which the vice-admiral made in a conversation with the Izvestia correspondent Konstantin Getmansky. For the first time the Vice-admiral brings evidence that the Kursk was lost in result of a collision with a foreign submarine. We do not know why he decided to tell about this now. The military that occupy such high functions very rarely make such declarations without consulting their leadership. If such a consultation took place, it means that after the Kursk was salvaged, the commission managed to obtain the final evidence of a collision. However, if it did not – it means that the Vice-admiral staked his all, placing his admiral’s honor above his carrier.” I will cite the most interesting passages from the interview with the Vice-admiral.
“A lot of direct signs were registered proving that a second underwater object, possibly wrecking itself, was in the vicinity of the wrecking Kursk. Peter the Great has registered this object with hydro-acoustic equipment. It was also visually registered by people who tried to get distress buoys out of the water…
– Then why wasn’t the buoy fished out? It could have served as evidence of a collision.
– The buoy was retained by a cable-rope about three-meters-deep. It was practically anchored. Anything could have been this anchor.
– Could it have been another submarine?
– Yes. And when an officer tried to hook the buoy with a gaff he didn’t succeed. Unfortunately, later the buoy was lost because of bad weather. By the evening of August 13th our pilots have registered fuel bubbles on a distance of about 18 miles to the northwest from the Kursk. Then anti-submarine planes discovered a submarine leaving the Barents Sea. The same flight was done on the following day, in order to confirm the location of this submarine, but the signal of all of our hydro-acoustic buoys was suppressed on all the channels by our ‘friends’ from NATO.
– Then why was the ‘underwater’ object lost by such ships as Peter the Great and Admiral Chabanenko, which are specially designed for searching submarines?
– As a head of staff I admit that this was a neglect. When it discovered the sunken submarine and registered a second underwater object, Peter the Great decided its main task was to bring rescue forces to the Kursk. Maybe it was wrong. In this situation it had to execute both the rescue task and the task of finding out the real cause of the catastrophe.”
Another confession: “Twenty three people in the ninth compartment have maybe died eight hours after the catastrophe, already when the compartment was flooded. Still sailors might have remained alive in the fifth and the second-fifth compartment and they continued to bang. We heard the last bangs at 11:00AM on August 14th.” This confession is unpleasant for president Putin. After all he gave the sanction to the Navy for using foreign help to rescue the crew only on August 16th (I remind that the Navy did not possess the technical means itself). Only after it has been two days that the banging stopped.
On December 13th 2001 a Soviet Union Hero, former commander of the nuclear submarines fleet, the Vice-admiral Matushkin gave an interview to the Pravda newspaper. The newspaper writes: “He reminded that white and green buoys were found on the surface in the vicinity of the accident, which are used in emergency situations in the US Navy. ‘We have red and white buoys’, the Vice-admiral said. Then, in his words, a distress signal from a submarine was acoustically registered. ‘Doubtlessly, it was a foreign submarine. In our fleet such signals are not transmitted automatically for secrecy reasons.” He supposed that the tragedy was unfolding according to the following scenario. The Kursk and the foreign submarine were going towards each other on different depths. The Russian submarine was going deeper than “the American submarine and when they collided it received damages on the upper left side.” With such an upper damage it is impossible to create counter-pressure and stop the water from entering. “Our submarine that had a speed of, let’s say, 5-6 knots, has sharply taken a trim by the bow (50-60 degrees) and sunk to the bottom”, Matushkin pointed out. Also a shelved torpedo fell and hit the body of the submarine. Then it detonated. Lev Matuhskin categorically disapproved the version of a torpedo dysfunction causing the Kursk’s loss. He considers that this “illiterate declaration is intended for the naivety of the society. Such declarations are an attempt to compromise the submarine crew and the services of torpedo bases.” As regarding the claims and the conclusions of the attorneys, then, as Matushkin said, “not a single attorney, even a military one, can be considered an expert in naval affairs. Only the opinion of a real expert in submarines can be precious here, obviously on the condition that he is honest.”
I remind that on June 29th 2002 on the final session of the governmental commission investigating the Kursk loss, the official cause was named – a torpedo explosion. Minimally there was one honest expert in the commission – the adm. Motzak. I have reported his opinion above.
After the pronouncing of the official verdict, Russian media have forgotten about the Kursk under the pressure of the Kremlin, the FSB and well, time. But some have not forgotten about this tragedy – whom would you think? – Foreigners, of course. Only recently History Channel in Canada showed documental series about submarines. Two series were dedicated to the Kursk. Russian internet-forums were full of discussions about the Canadian movie. Here is its description, taken from an Internet site as told by Stringer on August 1st 2005.