Vladimir Putin and Bill Clinton
Declassified transcripts of his telephone and personal conversations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin have been published on the website of the digital library of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton. The decryption appeared in August 2019, but the journalists paid attention to it only now. One of the topics of conversation between the two leaders was the sinking of the Kursk submarine.
The first conversation between Clinton and Putin about the Kursk, according to the publication in English, took place on September 6, 2000 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. The American president expressed regret over the emergency and recalled what he had to endure after the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City in April 1995. “When something like this happens, people all over the world imagine themselves in the shoes of the victims and their families, but I also imagine myself in your place. You've probably faced a lot of criticism. It always happens, ”Clinton said.
In response, Putin clarified that he had no good choice and found himself between bad and worse options. “Some people said that if I put a small submarine down there right away and even made an attempt to save the guys, my ratings would go up. You can't do something like that for the sake of PR, ”he added, noting that what happened did not affect his situation in any way. “But I am very afraid that something like this could happen again,” the Russian leader emphasized.
Further, the Russian president said that he felt powerless during this disaster. “Now you can see that the entire crew died within 60 or 90 seconds. We could not tell our relatives about this, but there was a hole about two meters in the building, through which the first three compartments were flooded, ”Putin explained.
The nuclear-powered submarine K-141 “Kursk” crashed in the Barents Sea exactly 20 years ago, on August 12, 2000. Then 118 people died – the entire crew and the representative of the Dagdizel plant attached to them. According to a report by the Prosecutor General's Office, the cause of the disaster was a torpedo explosion due to a leak of fuel components. 23 people survived in the pressurized 9th compartment. According to various versions, they could stay alive from several hours to two days (the crew's relatives insist on the latest version), but neither Russian services nor foreign specialists who joined the operation were able to save them.
