Kursk tragedy to remain a mystery

The Kursk will be raised without torpedo compartment

By Russian Affairs Analyst Stephen Dalziel

The Russian minister responsible for the commission investigating the sinking of the nuclear submarine, the Kursk, has been giving details of the plan to raise the vessel from the sea bed.

The ghost of the Kursk will haunt the Russian president and his government for a long time to come

Ilya Klebanov said that it was planned to bring the submarine to the surface in August.

But he added that the compartment containing the torpedoes would be severed and left in the sea.

He said that raising the torpedo compartment would run the risk of it exploding.

The ghost of the Kursk will haunt Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government for a long time to come.

If the submarine is raised from the bottom of the Barents Sea according to the timetable outlined by Mr Klebanov, it will have taken at least a year to bring it to the surface from the time that it sunk with all its 118 crew.

That will still not be the end of the matter.

One of the main reasons why Mr Putin promised the Russian people the vessel would be recovered was so that the bodies of the crew could be buried.

Twelve bodies were recovered last autumn, when divers entered the wreck.

Safety first

The Russian president has said that he wants all the grieving families to be able to bury their dead with dignity.

There were no survivors

But the announcement that the torpedo compartment will be cut away and left on the sea bed is controversial.

It may be sensible from the point of view of safety.

But it means it will be very difficult - maybe even impossible - to determine the cause of the accident.

The Russian authorities admit that the Kursk may have sunk after an on-board explosion of a torpedo, but do not rule out the possibility that the submarine collided with a foreign vessel.

Western experts say the explosion of a torpedo is by far the most likely reason.

But if the torpedo compartment is not raised, no-one will be able to prove that - one way or the other.