Kursk Down (17 page)

At first, the Navy was unprepared to assist family members who arrived at the train station. Disconsolate men and women were left to fend for themselves. Some bereaved relatives had to contend with taxi drivers demanding the princely sum of 500 rubles for the drive to Vidyaevo. Five hundred rubles was the equivalent of $18, about a fifth of an officer’s monthly pay, an outrageous price for the trip.

By Saturday, August 19, the Navy’s oversight was rectified. Special direction signs to buses had been posted in the railroad terminal and personnel were on hand to aid these pilgrims.

After serious deliberation, it was decided that President Putin would fly to Northern Fleet Naval Headquarters at Severomorsk. Dressed in a black suit and shirt with no tie, he was greeted by Admiral Kuroyedov, head of the Russian Navy, then transported to Vidyaevo. Putin intended to meet with the families on Tuesday, August 22, before the scheduled national day of mourning. In preparation for this session, relatives of the deceased not yet in the Murmansk area, or in transit, would be offered air transportation. Money was short, so Karat Airlines Flight AKT 9611 was chartered by an oil company. A naval officer from headquarters later noted that the Navy did not have an aircraft large enough to accommodate the number of people.

Families traveled to Moscow from all regions of Russia and, despite their mourning, told each other their stories. Many were too exhausted from watching TV reports of the rescue as it slowly progressed. One woman complained that no one had contacted her about the flight. She found out about it from television. A tearful man stated he had learned from the paper that his nephew was among the missing.

In an effort to help the grieving throng, civilian and military psychologists were assigned to the group.

The news media, still hungry for coverage, came out in force. Many waited to waylay family members at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow, where the chartered flight originated. This was an opportunity for reporters in the capital city to file firsthand stories on the aftermath of the disaster. With no one to hold them back, they worked the crowd, seeking human interest tales and more evidence of military disregard for surviving family members.

Once in Murmansk, however, preparations improved. There were no available hotel rooms. Media representatives had most of those. So many family members were lodged with local citizens.

On the morning of August 22, all was set for the meeting with President Putin. For security reasons, the session was held in the closed town of Vidyaevo.

Just one TV network, government-run RTR, was present, with a single camera. To handle the feedback to the broadcast center in Moscow, since there was no satellite transmitter available in the tightly controlled town, RTR used a remote truck from RTL, a German telecaster. This allowed the RTL Moscow bureau chief to view actual real-time coverage of the closed session. He was quoted as saying, “The only camera that was there belonged to RTR. At the same time, the head of the state broadcasting company, Oleg Dobrodeyev, was personally sitting in the RTL transmission van, controlling every frame that was sent to Moscow.”

TV coverage was said to have depicted a sympathetic president consoling the bereaved relatives and family in a calm atmosphere.

Only a few reporters were present for the meeting. No tape recorders were allowed. However, according to several reports in
The Moscow Times
, one journalist secretly taped the session. And what purports to be a transcript of the exchange appeared in the Russian press. In the account it is clear that President Putin had not anticipated the degree of anger and resentment confronting him.

The session opened badly. Putin noted that he had a meeting at Fleet Headquarters and thought he should see the family group first.

Questions were shouted, objections yelled, Putin was interrupted, and people hollered at each other. The meeting appeared to have ended leaving many unsatisfied and a bit shocked.

In summary, the president proposed a financial settlement to the families based on 120 months’ pay of an average military officer. This caused an immediate and lengthy debate over what an average officer earned. Putin also agreed to make at least one of the Dagdizel specialists who had been on the
Kursk
part of the crew so that individual’s family would qualify for compensation.

Each family was awarded an additional 725,000 rubles (a little more than $26,000) along with housing anywhere in the country. Many charitable funds were also being set up to help relatives of
Kursk
victims.

Inadvertently, this effort to mollify the relatives of those lost men was to have a far-reaching effect. News of money being paid to ease the lives of the
Kursk
relations caused a backlash from mothers whose sons had died fighting in Chechnya.

Relatives of soldiers and sailors killed in the line of duty didn’t question that
Kursk
crew members’ families deserved reparation. Compensation was expected as part of the system. Family units losing a member receive the standard 120 times the deceased’s monthly salary, to be divided among immediate family. Each family member also received an insurance settlement of 25 times the serviceman’s monthly pay. And a lump sum amount was allowed for funeral expenses.

The upgrading of benefits to families of those who died on the
Kursk
to officer level for the purposes of fixing compensation, along with the $26,000, and guarantee of housing, seemed inequitable to many.

Their discrimination cause was quickly taken up by Pravo Materi, the Foundation for a Mother’s Right, a volunteer organization formed in 1989 to provide legal aid to families of soldiers killed in uniform.

During the meeting, Putin also spoke harshly several times about the media, accusing them of falsehoods and taking advantage of the disaster for political gain. After reading the meeting transcript, some commentators felt he did not take criticism very well. Nor did the president have a satisfactory answer to the question of how and where qualified relatives should apply for the settlement. And one interesting press criticism concerned Putin’s use of vulgar language.

According to a translation of the transcript, Putin stayed with the Navy line. During a confused exchange, he placed blame for the disaster on a collision or perhaps a mine or possibly an onboard explosion, which he noted specialists thought very unlikely although theoretically possible.

Several of the relatives clearly did not want to believe the entire crew was dead. There were calls to cancel the National Day of Mourning. However, as Putin pointed out, it was already Wednesday, August 23, the scheduled day, in some parts of Russia. He suggested instead that he forward the families’ request that TV coverage not expand by playing requiems.

Perhaps the most chilling and unnerving incident of the entire turbulent day took place during a later press conference. A woman identified as Nadezhda Tylik, mother of Senior Lieutenant Sergey N. Tylik, who was the electric navigation party commander on board the
Kursk
, attended a post-meeting press conference. She began shouting at Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov. The television camera caught the action. A naval officer slipped to her side. A woman, armed with a long-needled hypodermic syringe, moved behind Mrs. Tylik and injected her with what was reportedly a sedative. As Mrs. Tylik said later, the shot made her instantly unable to speak. She dropped to the floor and was carried out. A Navy official told several journalists that it was not as big a deal as the West made it. “We are simply protecting the relatives from undue pain—it was for her own protection.”

To counter the bad publicity, her husband, Nikolai, a 20-year submarine veteran who spoke after the meeting, maintained he had requested that his wife be sedated because he feared for her health. Months later, according to several news services, Mrs. Tylik said Nikolai later told her he had lied to save her from getting further upset. He had not asked that she be sedated.

While the meeting and that entire day had been somewhat messy, subsequent opinion polls in Russia indicated it did little to harm Putin’s popularity. Findings reported by the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Research (VtsIOM) showed their sample lowered approval of his overall job performance from a peak of 73 in July to 65. Considering the length and depth of media attacks on his performance during the
Kursk
disaster, the loss was surprisingly small.

While President Putin was dealing with the families, who were demanding to know why he had not personally taken charge of the recovery effort, another unusual event was developing.

Later that same day, August 22, Minister of Defense Igor Sergeyev, along with Admirals Kuroyedov and Popov, submitted their resignations. The following day, President Putin spoke on RTR TV. He noted the resignations and made it clear he had refused to accept them. He said he did not intend to fire anyone without having a clear establishment of guilt. Many responded to that position with knowing looks. They understood about Russian resignations.

Putin was quoted as saying that rather than blaming these officials, anger should be directed at those who had destroyed the Army, Navy, and the state. By this, he clearly meant the group labeled oligarchs. The “oligarchy” is a class of superwealthy businessmen, created after the fall of the Soviet Union during the process of modernization and democratization. Some of these powerful men gained their wealth through political connections and shrewd business deals, putting together vast commercial empires by acquisition of cheap state assets. Oligarchs were blamed by the Kremlin for corruption of the media, the legislature, and the judicial branch, along with skimming profits from state resources, stealing by tax avoidance, and much more.

The national day of mourning was painful, as a country publicly showed its grief. Keeping with tradition, mourners flocked to Russian Orthodox churches. Candles were lit and thousands upon thousands said prayers for the dead and their loved ones. The event was so sobering the press paused in its pointed criticism of how badly the entire disaster had been handled.

23–31 August 2000—Moscow

On Wednesday evening, August 23, during the appearance on RTR TV in which he rejected the resignations of Sergeyev, Kuroyedov, and Popov, President Putin was somber. He revealed that he felt a personal responsibility for the loss of the
Kursk
and her crew. He assured the Russian people that those at fault would be identified and punished. When questioned about the meeting in Vidyaevo with the families, he responded by saying words were not enough; they were difficult to find. He wanted to wail.

Devoted to his goal of improving morale in his country, he blamed the negative press on two media magnates who wanted political gain. He also noted that Russia had survived a lot and would overcome this loss to be great once again.

While not mentioned during the TV interview but hinted at in other ways, plans were being laid. There was one act that would hopefully stem the aggressive media pressure on the government and the military. The deep desire expressed over and over during the meeting with the families was to have the bodies of their loved ones retrieved.

To accomplish this recovery, and satisfy the living, would be no small task. Conditions inside the
Kursk
were dangerous for divers. Debris was strewn throughout the boat and the workers would have to be careful not to snag their diving suits or long umbilical hoses as they moved about. Entry into some of the spaces and compartments would require cutting holes through the double hulls. The project would be expensive, risk lives, and take time. It would also require weeks to set up. It had to be done, though. From the standpoint of media relations and the grieving families, the sooner the better.

Twelve days after the accident, on August 24, a Thursday morning, a formal memorial service attended by the relatives took place in Vidyaevo. Groundbreaking for a monument to the
Kursk
and its lost crew was part of the ceremony.

Relatives who wished could also participate in shipboard rites at the disaster site. Wreaths were lowered into the sea. Sad, gray-faced widows, children, mothers, and fathers stood in a tight group against the chill wind. Their tearful eyes were focused on the water, as if each were trying to peer into the depths for a last view of their loved ones.

A Russian Orthodox priest and a Moslem cleric gave prayers for the deceased. Then the ship made a slow circle around the spot now marked with floral tributes and sounded its horn before returning to port.

Concurrent with the various memorial tributes and with little public fanfare, military prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the tragedy. A short while later, one of the panel’s lines of inquiry was fed to the news media. The committee was looking into charges that human error had been the decisive cause of the sinking. The accident could have been due to a “violation of safety rules.”

This leak, preplanned or not, was the first inkling that the collision theory might not have gained a united front throughout the Russian military organization.

The memorial services appeared to mark a slowdown in the news value of the
Kursk
disaster. During the next few days there were only stories of minor interest or concern on the accident. The government Emergency Situations Minister Sergey Shoigu indicated that a program was moving forward to establish several sea-rescue centers to handle any future accidents.

Of specific importance to the
Kursk
, reports began to surface about sabotage on the submarine by pro-Chechen militant rebels from Dagestan. Russian troops had been fighting to quell a revolutionary movement in Chechnya. A terrorist group claimed the submarine was sunk by one of the crew who came from Dagestan. Since only one crew member and the two torpedo experts from Dagdizel had Dagestan connections, this was a rather pointed accusation.

Actually, sabotage stories had been surfacing before this release. The earliest had been from the Ukraine and appeared immediately after the early news about the submarine being down. That story also assigned the reason for the disaster to a terrorist group.