Analysis: Kursk cover-up

The Russians now admit no other vessel was involved

By the BBC's Russian affairs analyst Stephen Dalziel

The spirit of the Soviet Union is alive and well, and living in the headquarters of the Russian Navy.

That became apparent when news first came through in August 2000 that the pride of the Northern Fleet, the giant nuclear submarine Kursk, had been involved in an accident.

According to the naval high command, the Kursk had "encountered difficulties", and had been allowed "to drift to the sea bed".

Relatives were even told the navy had established contact with the crew

As more information emerged about the accident, this official version of events began to look increasingly absurd.

Two explosions on board the submarine had been monitored, making it clear that the bow of the Kursk had been ripped open, and the vessel had sunk to the bottom like a stone.

The navy still tried to suggest to the grieving relatives of the crew that there was hope of finding their loved ones alive - in a blatant lie they even said that they had established contact with the crew.

But as the layers of official fabrication were peeled away to reveal the bitter truth, the Russian Navy dreamt up another theory to cover its embarrassment: the Kursk had been struck by a foreign vessel.

This collision had caused the first on-board explosion, which had then triggered a larger one as a number of torpedoes ignited.

As always happens when the former superpowers carry out naval exercises, the "other side" - the United States - did have submarines in the area of the Barents Sea where the exercise was taking place.

Three possible explanations

Collision with WWII mine

Mishandling of torpedo

Problem with torpedo's fuel

But there were two key questions which the Russian Navy made no attempt to answer.

Firstly, if a smaller, single-hulled foreign submarine had collided with the massive, twin-hulled Kursk, what had happened to the foreign vessel?

Surely the collision, or the shock waves of the two explosions, would have disabled that vessel, too?

Secondly, just supposing that the smaller vessel had been able to get away: why did no vessel which had been in the area show any signs of damage?

The US and Britain - which also had submarines in the area of the exercise - are both sufficiently open societies for an event such as a submarine not returning home, or limping back in with significant damage, not to go unnoticed.

The Russian authorities have now admitted - without great publicity - that the "collision" theory has been ruled out.

One newspaper claimed it had to pay hundreds of dollars just to get the names of the dead

An examination of the wreck has shown that the markings on the hull are incompatible with a collision; in other words, the dents show that the force went outwards, not inwards.

This means that there can be only three possible explanations for the Kursk tragedy.

The first of these - that the Kursk hit a World War II mine - seems unlikely.

Surely that, too, would have left some sign of an inward explosion?

Given that we know from reports of the progress of the exercise that the Kursk was about to fire a torpedo, the truth would seem to lie here.

Either there was mishandling of a torpedo, or there was a problem with the torpedo's fuel.

Circumstantial evidence points to the latter as the single most likely cause of the accident.

Cheap fuel

The Kursk was carrying torpedoes powered by a liquid hydrogen peroxide fuel.

Britain's Royal Navy experimented with such a fuel in the 1950s.

But, following an accident on board the submarine HMS Sidon in 1955, in which 13 sailors died, the fuel was deemed to be too unstable, and the Royal Navy went over to solid fuel.

But for the cash-strapped Russian Navy in the post-Soviet era, peroxide fuel held one major attraction: it is comparatively cheap.

So, it was introduced in vessels throughout the fleet. The question which the navy must now answer is, if the Kursk was sunk because of the torpedo's fuel, what is the risk of similar accidents occurring on other vessels?

Grim choices

This creates a huge dilemma for the Russian Navy.

Does it take this risk, and persist with peroxide fuel? Does it start to replace the fuel? Or does it simply keep more ships in dock, spending less time at sea or on exercise, thereby lowering the fleet's fighting capacity?

In practice, replacement of the fuel throughout the fleet is not an option: the navy simply does not have the money.

So the choices for the Russian Navy are grim, whichever way it looks.

When he ruled out the collision theory, the Deputy Prime Minister, Ilya Klebanov, said that the real cause of the Kursk tragedy was the way in which the Russian armed forces had deteriorated throughout the 1990s.

Perhaps the main lesson to come out of the accident, is just how desperate is the need for all-embracing military reform in Russia.