and this young man, vladimir putin, experienced his first serious political crisis at home. it was the nuclear submarine disaster. the pride of russia s nuclear submarine fleet, the 13,000 ton kursk is dead in the water. part of a northern fleet exercise designed to counter american warships. the kursk radios for permission to pyre torpedos and then silence. the sub is located an estimated 480 feet deep on the sea floor. according to russian naval spokesman, its crew videotaped in port this may could still be alive. the head of the russians navy tonight saying oxygen will run out friday, situation critical. vladimir putin s government waited a full day and a half
before publicly acknowledging that anything at all had happened to that russian nuclear submarine or the 118 sailors who were sure to suffocate on board. putin refused all offers of foreign help, and there were many. he actually spent the first few days overseeing the response to that disaster from his vacation, which he did not return from, from a few days. the russian people very quickly directed their anger over that horrifying disaster right at him. russians furious. public criticism of the navy and a president on vacation this week unprecedented. newspaper headlines, the kursk has sunk, and so has the people s faith the government can protect them from danger. today the navy finally releases a list of sailors aboard the kursk. anger inside russia at a boiling point. an unsuccessful rescue. a four-day delay in calling in help. a president until today who was on vacation. today morelltives of the
well, now almost 20 years ago vladimir putin is still president and there seems to be no plan for russia ever having another one after him. but now this something this summer something quite reminiscent of that kursk disaster appears to have happened again. twice. first time was last month. another nuclear submarine disaster. 14 russian sailors killed and deja vu that accident was not announced until 24 hours after it occurred. it took three whole days for vladimir putin to admit that a fire had taken place aboard a nuclear-powered sub. still next to no information has been released about the condition of the nuclear reactor on board that sub. that was in july. that was just last month. then a week and a half ago, we learned of another incident. this time some sort of an explosion at a missile test site. russia s military initially said nothing about it being an incident with any nuclear implications, they just described the thing that blew up