Putin pays tribute to sub crew

Britain's Commodore David Russell remembers the dead

Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting the headquarters of the Northern Fleet at Severomorsk to pay tribute to the 118 sailors who died on the sunken Kursk submarine.

He is expected to meet some of the bereaved families and visit the scene of the accident to lay a wreath on the waves of the Barents Sea.

Putin can expect a rough ride from the crew's relatives

Mr Putin has already decreed Wednesday a day of national mourning for the crew of the Kursk.

On Monday, the government acknowledged that all 118 crew members on board the submarine, which sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea on 12 August, were dead.

Russian and Norwegian experts have now begun a thorough examination of the wreck.

The troubled nine-day rescue operation ended after Norwegian-led divers forced open the submarine's rear escape hatch and found that the whole of the vessel was flooded.

Angry families

Correspondents say President Putin can expect an angry reception if he meets the families of the crew.

The Kursk crew (pictured in October 1999)

More than 500 people mourning the loss of their sons, husbands and friends have travelled from all over Russia to Severomorsk and the naval base of Vidyayevo.

In Murmansk, a group of relatives speaking to the BBC attacked Mr Putin's handling of the crisis, and threatened to tear Mr Putin to shreds if they saw him.

Announcing the day of mourning, Mr Putin's decree spoke of his grief over the loss of the submarine's crew and offered condolences to their families and relatives.

The Russian flag is to be flown at half-mast throughout the country, while television and radio stations have been asked to drop entertainment shows from their schedules.

Correspondents say the announcement could be a move by the Russian president to divert some of the public criticism he and his government are facing.

Mr Putin has come under fire from the press for remaining on holiday as the disaster unfolded, while Russians blame the country's leadership for being too slow to seek international help to save the men.

His deputy Prime Minister, Ilya Klebanov, has hit back at the Russian media for its attacks on the way the disaster was handled.

He said the navy had done all it could to save the crew, adding it was shocking that some journalists had tried to make cheap sensationalism out of the tragedy.

Scouring the seabed

A Norwegian-led team of divers is helping with the Kursk inquiry, which will initially focus on examining the seabed around the wreck.

Kursk timeline

12 Aug: Sinks during Barents Sea exercises

14 Aug: Russian navy inspects sub

15 Aug: Attempts to attach rescue capsule fail

16 Aug: Russians report no signs of life. Accept help from the West

17 Aug: British and Norwegian craft readied for rescue attempt

19 Aug: British and Norwegian teams arrive at scene

20 Aug: Norwegian divers examine Kursk

21 Aug: Divers enter flooded sub

A small robot will help collect samples from inside the vessel which will be tested for any signs of radioactivity leaking from the sub's reactors.

The team has also been asked to help recover the bodies of the crew, but the company supplying the team says such an operation would be dangerous and could take weeks.

One possibility being discussed is to drag the sub into shallower waters.

The cause of the disaster is still unclear.

But Norway's military has rejected Russian suggestions that there had been a collision.

"There may have been an explosion in one of the weapons systems aboard, for example a torpedo, which then triggered a bigger explosion two minutes later," armed forces spokesman Brigadier Kjell Grandhagen said.