Russians blast Putin as sub deaths are revealed

Indeed, for many Russians, the government's handling of the disaster has seemed an all-too-familiar throwback to Soviet times, when Moscow's leaders used obfuscation and denial to downplay disaster, including the Chernobyl nuclear leak. Worst still for many Russians was the government's refusal to seek or accept help from the West.

Across the street from Moscow's Gorky Park on Sunday, many Russians were basking in the late-summer sun in a sculpture garden filled with the city's statues of Josef Stalin and Vladimir Lenin. Lolling on the park benches, many said they sensed the old Communist ghosts suddenly springing back to life, as they watched the submarine disaster unfold.

"Every day we have been waiting for better news, but it seems to me that the government is to blame, since they did not ask for help right away," said Tatyana, 77, a retired researcher. She began spelling out her last name, and then stopped, too fearful to have it published. "In recent years, our tongues have become untied," she said. "Now, we are worried that maybe Putin is taking us back to the past, when we didn't know anything and when our mouths were shut."

Near a large granite statue of Stalin, Mikhail Pronnin, 56, said he had lit a candle in church that morning and said a prayer for the seamen, even though he was certain they were all dead.

"The military leaders and the government put secrecy above the people. Even now, we don't have any information," said Pronnin, who said he had served in the Soviet army during the 1960s at the height of the Cold War, and now worked for the Moscow telephone company. He wondered whether Putin's silence had been an outcome of his own grief or because he himself found the disaster "hard to digest."

The Russian press has been far more merciless in its lashing of Putin and the military.

On the front page of Monday's Moskovski Komsomolets newspaper, the acerbic headline said: "THEY DON'T DROWN." Below were photographs of Putin, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and Russian Navy Commander Vladimir Kuroyedov. The article suggested that perhaps the leaders had deliberately stalled calling for foreign rescue teams to ensure that no sailor would be left to tell the world how the Kursk sank.

For now, officials have no answer to that question.

Russian military brass at first insisted the vessel collided with something, perhaps a NATO submarine. But Western intelligence reports quickly picked up two underwater explosions, suggesting that perhaps an onboard torpedo had misfired.

What has jolted both Westerners and Russians this week are the risks of an overstretched Russian military, operating a large-scale force on a budget of barely $6 billion.

The Kursk, in fact, was one of Russia's newest submarines and a jewel in the country's Northern Fleet. Monday's Wall Street Journal said a recent Russian military report last December estimated that maintenance and repairs for the country's fleet had dropped to about 10 percent of what was needed.

Down a narrow side street in central Moscow, the anger and grief over the Kursk disaster has endured for days at the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, a human-rights group established by mothers of Chechnya war veterans.

There, in a smoke-filled room up a dark staircase, no one doubted who was to blame Monday, after Russian officials admitted the entire crew was dead.

"It is very clear that the government doesn't want to uncover the real reasons for what went wrong," said Ida Kuklina, a member of the group's coordinating committee. "The government is estranged from the people. And now, the people are estranged from the government."

• View blog reactions