Russians Angry, Anxious About Sub
Aug. 16 -- As more than 100 Russian sailors sit trapped in a crippled submarine, anger and anxiety is wracking their nation.
One father, who served 22 years in the Soviet navy himself, tells ABCNEWS he holds out slim hopes for his son.
“The chances aren’t good,” he says. “The temperature is very low inside [the submarine]. The oxygen must be low too.”
“They said this ship was one of the best, the safest,” says another parent, the mother of a sailor thought to be on board the Kursk, which was taking part in military exercises on Saturday, when some sort of mishap sent it to the bottom of the Barents Sea, north of the Arctic Circle.
“The worst is not knowing what’s happening to him now.”
‘We Don’t Know Anything …’
Navy officials have given very little information about the situation on the submarine and seem confused, says the wife of a senior officer thought to be on board.
“We don’t know anything about what’s happening inside [the Kursk],” said the woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Oksana. “I can’t imagine what could have gone wrong.”
The navy has not released a list of the men aboard the Kursk, many of whom are young conscripts who are sometimes moved from ship to ship with little warning.
Emotions are running highest in Murmansk, a seaside town where many of the residents have relatives and friends onboard the trapped Kursk. It is the city closest to the naval base of Severomorsk.
“It’s shameful, shameful. We’re supposed to be a great power,” says one young man at the seaport.
“I have been very worried. I have even had difficulties falling asleep because I feel they are like my kids those trapped in there and also because Murmansk is so close and that submarine, it is you know, nuclear. It has a nuclear reactor,” says Anna, another resident.
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