Russia Says No To Report On Kursk

The Russian Navy says a German newspaper report on what caused the Kursk submarine disaster is wrong.

The German daily paper Berliner Zeitung says an internal Russian investigation has concluded that the nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank last month, was hit by a rocket fired by a Russian cruiser during military exercises.

Russian Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo says that type of accident could not have happened.

"In the process of exercises, such an accident is strictly excluded," says Dygalo. "Surface ships and submarines operate within strictly defined training zones."

He adds that Russian ships and submarines never fire live ammunition during training exercises.

The German paper, citing information obtained by its Moscow correspondent, reports that the Russian commission which concluded a missile was to blame presented its conclusions to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 31.

The accident that sank the Kursk, killing all 118 on board, occurred Aug. 12 during exercises in the Barents Sea.

Russian officials have speculated that the Kursk collided with another vessel, tearing a large hole in its front end

U.S. Navy experts believe the explosion was probably caused by an experimental torpedo the Russians were testing, reports CBS News Correspondent David Martin.

Countering both the collision and the torpedo theories, the Berliner Zeitung report said that the Kursk was hit by a new anti-submarine rocket fired by the Russian nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, which was participating in the maneuvers.

It said the Granite rocket, which is armed with a new target-seeking warhead, dived underwater about 12 miles after being fired. Immediately afterward, the cruiser registered two underwater explosions, both of which could be seen from the bridge of the ship.

It was later determined that the position of the Kursk and the spot where the rocket went underwater were within 400 meters of each other. The report does not say whether the rocket itself or systems intended to differentiate between friend and foe malfunctioned, the newspaper said.

The commission was headed by Nikolai Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet KGB. Putin intends to discuss the report with senior military staff upon returning from the U.N. summit in New York, the Berliner Zeitung said.

Peter the Great had fired the rockets daily since Aug. 2 as part of the Northern Fleet's exercise, which was to practice defending against a nuclear attack on Russia.

On Aug. 12, the maneuvers were to test the deployment of the rocket "under maximum realistic conditions" and at relative short distances, the Berliner Zeitung report said.

Wednesday, the U.S. Navy, which had been monitoring a Russian naval exercise the Kursk was participating in, sent data on the explosion to the Kremlin.

Two American submarines were in the area of the Brents Sea when the Kursk sank, U.S. officials have said, but they insist there was no collision.

U.S. Navy officials believe the explosion was caused by some kind of liquid fuel used to propel the experimental weapon.

The initial explosion would not have sunk the submarine, but it was followed 90 seconds later by a huge, rumbling explosion: the equivalent of up to 5 tons of dynamite, or 45 to 50 times larger than the original blast. U.S. Navy officials say it was probably the warhead of the experimental weapon detonating.

As the hunt for the cause of the disaster continued this week, more details emerged about what happened after the sub went down.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who leads the government commission handling the disaster, reversed earlier Russian statements on the accident when he said Wednesday that there never was any contact with the sailors.

Previously, Russian navy officials had said several times that they heard tapping from inside the submarine the first few days after it went down, indicating some crew members were alive.

Klebanov said Wednesday, "Almost certainly, once it was on the sea floor, no one was left alive."

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