Sinking of the "Kursk": 20 years later, Russia pays tribute to the missing submariners

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2 min

It was 20 years ago, on August 12, 2000, the nuclear submarine the Kursk was wrecked in the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean. It was the biggest military naval disaster in peacetime. A tribute ceremony is being held this Wednesday in Saint Petersburg. Recall of facts.

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One hundred and fifty-four meters long, nuclear-headed missiles and new torpedoes, the Kursk was that day the latest of ten Russian nuclear attack submarines to participate in a military exercise.

8 am, operations begin; 11:29 am, the hulls of the many foreign spy ships that crisscross the area are shaking; 11:31 am: second explosion recorded by all seismographs from Europe to Alaska.

A torpedo has just exploded and the Kursk runs aground on the sand 108 meters deep. In any case, this is the official version of the investigation known much later, except that at that time not a word from Russia.

The brand new President Vladimir Putin is on vacation. It takes 48 hours for the information to be made public, and again, with a laconic "  technical problem  ".

For 9 days, the fate of the 118 sailors keeps the country in suspense. When Russia finally accepts international aid, Norwegian divers open the airlock after 30 hours of effort. All the sailors died: of the 118, 23 had survived the explosion and were waiting for help. The investigation did not identify any responsible.

► To read in the RFI archives:

- Russian submarine in perdition

- Kursk: help, it's too late

- The slow rise of the submarine

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