Fórum Defesa Brasil

US 'torpedoed Kursk nuclear sub'
Daniel Stacey, London

May 09, 2005

A FORMER British military official has backed a sensational claim that the Russian nuclear submarine, the Kursk, was torpedoed by US forces in August 2000.

An official inquest concluded that the disaster – in which all 118 crew drowned in the Barents Sea, 135km off the Russian coast – was caused by an accidental explosion of an onboard torpedo.

But Maurice Stradling, a former torpedo engineer and a key figure in the original investigation, believes a new French documentary, The Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters, should change world opinion on the sinking.

"On the balance of probabilities, the Kursk was sunk by an American MK-48 torpedo," said Mr Stradling, formerly a senior member of the British Defence Ministry.

BBC editor Nick Fraser called the claim a "pack of lies" and has refused to air the documentary, which attracted a record audience of more than 4 million when it screened on French TV.

The BBC used Mr Stradling as its main authority for a documentary it made in 2001 – What Sank the Kursk?, in which Mr Stradling theorised that the sinking was caused by the malfunctioning of an old-fashioned HTP torpedo.

Mr Stradling, who also appears in the new French documentary, said: "At the time (2001), that was a perfectly reasonable film, given the facts as we knew them then, when there seemed to be no third-party involvement,"

The new explanation for the Kursk's downing is based on film footage of a hole in the side of the vessel, and evidence placing US submarines in the area at the time it was sunk.

The French film shows stills of the Kursk raised above the water after being salvaged, with a precise circular hole in its right side. The hole clearly bends inwards, consistent with an attack from outside the submarine.

A US military source in the documentary declares the hole to be the trademark evidence of an American MK-48 torpedo, which is made to melt cleanly through steel sheet due to a mechanism at its tip that combusts copper.

The film suggests the attack happened while two US submarines, the Toledo and Memphis, were shadowing the Kursk in a routine military exercise.

The documentary says the Toledo accidentally collided with the Kursk, at which point the Russian submarine opened its torpedo tubes, leading to an attack from the Memphis, which was protecting the damaged Toledo while it retreated.

The cause of the sinking was covered up at the time in an act of diplomacy between then US presidents Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin – a deal that included the cancellation of $US10 billion ($12.5 billion) of Russian debt, the film states.

After the documentary received its only public broadcast in Britain, some claimed the Russian navy had drilled the hole and fed doctored footage to the film-makers to create a false impression.

K-141 Kursk was a Project 949A Антей (Antey, Antaeus; also known by its NATO reporting name of "Oscar-II" class) nuclear cruise missile submarine named after the Russian city Kursk, where one of the biggest battles of World War II took place (Battle of Kursk). She was commissioned into the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy. Kursk sank on August 12, 2000 with all hands lost.

Alternative claims about the cause of the explosion
Almost immediately after the Kursk sinking, Chechen independent news agency Kavkaz-Center (http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng) reported that the explosion in the submarine was caused by a suicide bomber on board, a crew member originating from the Muslim region of Dagestan in southern Russia. Allegedly he blew himself up in support for Muslim fighters in Chechnya.

French filmmaker Jean-Michel Carré, in his documentary Kursk: a Submarine in Murky Waters (Koursk: un sous-marin en eaux troubles [2] (http://contrecourant.france2.fr/article ... rticle=219)), which aired on 7 January 2005 on French TV channel France 2, Atalleged that Kursk sank because of a collision with a US submarine. According to Carré, the Kursk was performing tests of a new torpedo called Shkval and the tests were being observed by two US submarines on duty in the region, Memphis and Toledo. At some point rhe Kursk and the Toledo collided, damaging the latter, and in order to discourage the Kursk from pursuing it, the Memphis fired a torpedo into the Russian submarine. According to the story, the US torpedo probably hit an old type Russian torpedo on the Kursk which did not explode until later, but when the explosion did occur it substantially damaged the Kursk. Carré alleges that Russian president Vladimir Putin deliberately concealed the truth about what happened and let the crew members die, in order not to strain relations with the US Government. (See article in French newspaper Libération (http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=266435)). The New York Times later revealed that Memphis had in fact been observing Kursk during the torpedo tests. Another incident purportedly supporting the truthfulness of this story is that the Toledo took refuge in Bergen, Norway, where no non-Americans were allowed to inspect the submarine in its hidden dock (standard practice). Another circumstance purporting to confirm the story and its coverup is that the USA freed Russia from payment responsibility for a substantial monetary loan and even gave Russia permission to take out another loan. Today the remains of the Kursk have been melted down and destroyed. However, an official 2000 page report, published in 2002, concluded that the Kursk's sinking was caused by a test torpedo that exploded in the torpedo room. Some conspiracy theorists claim that the report was a coverup to further strengthen the relations between Russia and the USA.