Four days after the crash of a Russian submarine that killed fourteen crew members, Moscow continues to maintain a stubborn silence about the circumstances surrounding the large fire at the Severomorsk military base in the Arctic. This site, a few kilometers from Murmansk, is home to the North Fleet, the most powerful of the Russian Navy.
President Vladimir Putin waited until the day after the incident, Tuesday, July 2, to confirm it. It took another day for the authorities to deign to name one of the deceased, while the identity of the fourteen missing had been circulating for several hours on social networks. But Moscow continued to refuse to mention the causes of the accident, and did not want to specify how many sailors had survived.
The Russian authorities also remained very vague about the submarine model involved and the extent of the damage. "It's a scientific vessel that was on a mission to study the seabed," said the Ministry of Defense. A precision that does not explain the presence on board - confirmed by Moscow - of first class naval captains. These officers are usually assigned to the most important military buildings, and not to purely scientific submersibles.
Nuclear powered submarine
Moscow "keeps a remarkable level of secrecy around what happened to this submarine," recognizes Pavel Baev, a specialist in the Russian army at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, contacted by France 24. A reluctance to enter the details that pushed some media to compare this accident to that of the submarine Kursk, where 118 sailors were killed in 2000. Vladimir Putin, recently in power, had been criticized for his lack of communication on the circumstances of the tragedy .
Other Russian commentators have even drawn a parallel with Moscow's radio silence just after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. Russia has nuclear submarines at the Severomorsk base, and Defense Sergei Shoygou confirmed that the accident hit one of them. "All indications are that the submarine AS-31 nuclear propulsion and the absence of radiation in the area after the accident, confirmed by the Norwegian security [the Norwegian border is close, Ed], indicates that the worst could be avoided, "says Pavel Baev.
That the accident occurred on the submarine AS-31 is also considered a fact established by most media. This is the ultimate submarine exploration and research of the Russian army, and, above all, it would explain why Moscow is also stingy with details. "This is the most secretive project of the Russian navy," confirms Pavel Baev. There is only one shot of the camera, and it was taken by accident ... when shooting a 2015 episode of the show devoted to the automobile "Top Gear".
Scientific missions ... and military
The AS-31, also called Losharik (a reference to an eponymous Russian cartoon of the 1970s), is a unique submarine whose design dates back to the end of the Soviet era. "The construction of the first version of this submarine [called AS-21, Ed] was interrupted in the 1990s due to lack of money, then it resumed in the early 2000s to be completed in 2003" says Pavel Baev. This submarine is often misrepresented as a spy submarine. "Its main purpose is the exploration of the seabed, and it was first used in the Arctic, in 2012, to collect samples supposed to strengthen the Russian maritime claims on this region," said the specialist. The Losharik was indeed designed to dive more than 6,000 meters below sea level.
But it also has a military utility. "It is suspected to be used to monitor submarine cables and it would also be equipped to cut them if necessary," says Pavel Baev. The AS-31 submarine would also perform reconnaissance and cleaning missions. "The staff of the Russian navy fears that NATO has truffled the seabed around the Severomorsk base of electronic surveillance equipment, and this vessel - thanks to its descent and submersibility capability - is the tool ideal to spot and get rid of this type of snitch, "notes Pavel Baev.
It could be, according to him, that the accident occurred during a mission. But this does not explain, in his eyes, the main mystery of the whole affair: why captains of the first class had sailed aboard a building which, to his knowledge, never carried weapons. Moscow refuses to enlighten this point invoking the secret defense ... which leaves the door open to all speculation.