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Putin Feels "Responsible, Guilty" for Kursk Tragedy
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he feels "fully responsible and guilty" for the death of 118 crew aboard the ill-fated Kursk nuclear submarine.
Putin told the state RTR television that Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov and Northern Fleet Commander Vyacheslav Popov have submitted their letters of resignation for the tragedy but the resignations were turned down.
"The letters will not be accepted," Putin said, adding that the causes and circumstances of the sinking of the Kursk should first be clarified.
The multipurpose sub went down to the bottom of the Barents Sea on August 12. Putin and the military have come under fierce criticism for failing to rescue the submariners and for being too slow in requesting outside help.
"If anyone is to blame, I must be punished. But we must get an objective picture of the accident," the Interfax news agency quoted Putin as saying in the television interview.
To accept someone's resignation or fire someone "is the easiest and most erroneous way out" of the tragic situation, but that "does not change the essence of the matter," Putin said. "We should get an objective picture of both the accident and the course of the rescue efforts."
"I will remain with the army and navy," Putin promised. "Together we will revive the army, the navy and the country," he said.
"Russia has always had a future," he said. "We will get through this grave tragedy. But these events should unite the nation and public."
He blasted some politicians for trying to use the misfortune for political gain and to "benefit some group interests."
Those "who say that the people who have long promoted the disintegration of the army, navy and state were among the first ranks of the seamen's advocates."
"Some of them even collected a million each (in donations)," he said, adding that in his opinion, these people should have better "sold their villas on the Mediterranean coast of France or Spain."
"But in that case they would have had to explain why all this real estate was registered in the name of figureheads and dummy legal companies. And we would have probably asked where the money had come from," Putin said.
He said he is very sorry about the widely repeated phrase that "the honor of the navy, the pride of Russia, sank together with Kursk."
"You know that our country has lived through years of much worse trouble than we have lived through recently. We and our ancestors faced much worse catastrophes. We have lived through everything," he said.
"Russia has always had a future," Putin said. "What we are going through today is a very grave thing. But I am absolutely sure that events of this kind should unite the nation and the people, not separate them," he said.
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