Word: kursk
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...would have come to envy the dead. Dying always seems more gruesome when it is in slow motion, and slow-motion submarine deaths are perversely compelling because they happen in shallow water within reach of rescuers. Men who have been trapped in stricken submarines say the crew of the Kursk would have suffered from cold as temperatures fell to 41[degrees]F and from severe headaches as levels of carbon dioxide rose in the smothering atmosphere. They would have suffered too from fear and hopelessness as rescuers repeatedly tried, and failed, to save them. "Those guys can hear the minisubs...
What caused the loss of the Kursk remained unclear. Russian officials fell back on old Soviet habits of secrecy and confusion during the first days of the disaster. They made no announcement for two days, then issued a bland statement that there had been a "technical fault" and the boat was on the sea bottom. After the seriousness of the accident became clearer, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev declared that there was "incontrovertible evidence" that the sub had collided with another vessel. In past years Soviet and U.S. vessels have had near collisions while spying on each other, but the Pentagon...
Whatever the direct cause of the disaster, the Kursk was doomed as much by underfunding, insufficient training and incompetent military management as by collision or high explosives. Since the end of the cold war, the Russian navy has declined from 613 ships of all types to around 95 today, a drop of 84%, compared with a shrinkage of around 40% for Western navies. Of the few ships remaining in the Russian inventory, only about 10% are considered by Western experts to be fit to put to sea. One reason is that the bulk of Russia's dwindling defense budget goes...
...Because of poor maintenance levels across much of the fleet, the fleet can't put to sea very often, so personnel are less well trained," says Joanna Kidd, naval analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Kursk, as one of the newest and most important boats in the fleet, would have received enough to keep up maintenance but probably not enough to keep up vital seatime training for navy men. "It's speculation, but their reactions might have been slow," says Kidd. Similarly, the rescue efforts may have suffered from lack of training. "If most...
...exercise in which the Kursk was lost reflected President Vladimir Putin's declared intention to rebuild the navy at least to the levels of the French and British fleets, if not to the size and might of the U.S. Navy. It was intended as a dress rehearsal for a show-of-force cruise of the eastern Mediterranean later this year to be led by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and the battle cruiser Peter the Great. Losing the Kursk is a major setback for these plans and for Putin's naval ambitions. "He has aligned himself personally with the revival...