Relatives' anger on Kursk anniversary

The memorial was unveiled in Moscow on the 2nd anniversary

MOSCOW, Russia -- Two years on, relatives of sailors who died aboard Russia's Kursk nuclear submarine continue to ask questions about the cause of the tragedy.

They voiced their anger as Russia unveiled memorials and flew flags at half mast on Monday for 118 sailors who perished in the disaster.

Friends and relatives attended a Moscow ceremony, unveiling a 14-foot bronze statue of a sailor, a fist clenched across his chest in front of a replica of a submarine.

Flags flew at half mast on warships from the Pacific to the icy Barents Sea where the nuclear-armed submarine sank after a torpedo accidentally exploded.

At the Arctic navy base of Vidyayevo, the home port of the doomed Kursk, a monument was unveiled of a submarine's conning tower hewn from black marble.

"This pain will now linger on till the end of our days. It will never die down," Lidiya Silagava, mother of one of the sailors, told the NTV channel after laying flowers at Vidyayevo.

The pride of the Russian fleet sank on August 12, 2000 after two explosions ripped through the vessel. All 118 men aboard died, although some managed to stay alive in the stern for several hours.

The scale of the disaster and the frustration at being unable to rescue the crew came as a particular blow to Russians as it vividly illustrated the long term military decline of a one-time superpower.

EXTRA INFORMATION In-depth: Raising of the Kursk

A senior Russian minister cleared NATO or any foreign vessels of sinking the Kursk, finally admitting a faulty torpedo was to blame.

"There remains only one version -- a torpedo blast," Ilya Klebanov, who chairs the official investigation into the disaster, told RTR television.

Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov closed the books on the catastrophe last month, saying: "The investigators have decided to close the criminal case since no evidence of a crime has been found."

But on the second anniversary of the sinking on Monday, relatives were still left asking why the torpedo exploded.

Retired navy Captain Anatoly Safonov, whose son Maxim died in the catastrophe, said the inquiry's findings were a cover-up.

"They have never explained why the torpedo exploded," Safonov told the Associated Press.

"The submarine sank, all its crew died, and now they tell us that no one was to blame."

The Kursk was lost on August 12, 2000 with all 118 men on board

"Those who designed the torpedo couldn't foresee the possibility of its explosion," Ustinov has said.

"In the best case, the real truth about what happened on the Kursk may pop up in some 25 years," said Svetlana Baigarina, the widow of crewman Murat Baigarin.

"Now the officials will say whatever is convenient for them."

Some relatives say crewmen had talked about a torpedo flaw before setting out to sea.

Nadezhda Tylik, mother of Lt Sergei Tylik who died in the control room, said people at the submarine base told her after the disaster that the torpedo had been accidentally dropped before being loaded aboard.

"The crew knew what it meant," said Tylik, recalling her son telling her before the last mission that the Kursk was carrying "death on board."

Tylik accused the prosecutors of covering up the accidental dropping of the torpedo.

"They want to protect the navy's top brass," she said. "The evidence is buried somewhere in their files, and they will never tell us the truth." (Full story)

The Kursk was one of Russia's largest and most advanced submarines.

Its loss was not just a tragedy but a national humiliation, compounded by bungled rescue efforts that cast Vladimir Putin in a bad light just seven months into his presidency.

The crew was recovered when the wreck was raised in October 2001.

Stung by accusations he had failed to grasp the seriousness of the tragedy, Putin, who was on holiday at the time of the sinking, made it a point of honour to raise the Kursk and give the ill-fated crew a military burial.