MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin
disclosed on Thursday for the first time that a secret military
submarine hit by a fatal fire three days ago was
nuclear-powered, prompting Russia's defence minister to assure
him its reactor had been safely contained.
Russian officials have faced accusations of trying to cover
up the full details of the accident that killed 14 sailors as
they were carrying out what the defence ministry called a survey
of the sea floor near the Arctic.
Moscow's slow release of information about the incident has
drawn comparisons with the opaque way the Soviet Union handled
the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster, and another
deadly submarine accidents - the 2000 sinking of the
nuclear-powered Kursk, which claimed 118 lives.
Russia, which says the details of the submarine involved in
the latest accident are classified, said the fire took place on
Monday, although it was only officially disclosed late on
Tuesday.
Until Thursday there was no official word either on whether
the vessel had a nuclear reactor, despite intense interest from
authorities in neighbouring Norway.
Putin, in a Kremlin meeting with Defence Minister Sergei
Shoigu, disclosed the fact that the submarine had been
nuclear-powered by asking Shoigu about the reactor's condition
after the deadly fire.
"The Nuclear reactor on the vessel is completely isolated,"
Shoigu told Putin, according to a Kremlin transcript. "All the
necessary measures were taken by the crew to protect the reactor
which is in complete working order," he added.
The fire erupted in the submarine's battery compartment,
Shoigu added, and later spread. Although the Kremlin publicised
the Putin-Shoigu meeting on Thursday morning, it was not
immediately clear when the two men had met.
"There has not been any formal communication from Russia to
us about this," Per Strand, a director at the Norwegian
Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, told Reuters when asked
if it had been informed that the submarine was nuclear-powered.
"We understand that they brought the situation under control
quickly, under difficult conditions, and there was, as such, no
nuclear incident that they were obligated to tell us about," he
added.
"Still, we would have been happy to have been informed of
such incidents."
TOP-SECRET SUBMARINE
Shoigu, a close Putin ally, told the Russian leader that the
secretive submarine, which authorities said had been operating
in the Barents Sea area, could and would be fully repaired.
"In our case, this is not just possible but obligatory,"
Shoigu said of the submarine's repair. "Right now, we are
assessing how long it will take, how much work there is, and how
we can carry it out."
A photograph of the deceased sailors circulated on social
media on Wednesday. Its authenticity could not be immediately
confirmed by Reuters, but it appeared to have been hung on the
wall of a Russian military facility.
A tribute to the men accompanying the photograph called them
heroes and said they had served on board a nuclear-powered
deep-sea submersible known by the designation AS-31.
Russian media have previously reported, without official
confirmation, that the vessel is designed to carry out special
operations at depths where regular submarines cannot operate.
Made out of a series of inter-connected spheres, which are
stronger than the conventional submarine construction and allow
it to resist water pressure at great depths, Western military
experts have suggested it is capable of probing and possibly
even severing undersea communications cables.
Shoigu told Putin that the families of the dead sailors
would be fully provided for, while the Russian leader, the
commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, ordered him to
draw up proposals to posthumously grant those who were killed
state awards.
An official investigation into the accident, likely to be
shrouded in secrecy, is already underway.
The Kommersant daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with
the situation, has reported that it looks like the deadly fire
was started by a powerful electrical short circuit.