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Vladimir Putin (Photo: Sputnik / Alexei Druzhinin / Kremlin via REUTERS / File photo)
Meduza has discovered a declassified transcript of a conversation between former US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Kursk submarine accident.
The transcript was posted in August 2019 on the Bill Clinton Digital Library website. Putin’s speech is not quoted verbatim, as it underwent a double translation.
The conversation between Putin and Clinton took place during a meeting in New York on September 6, 2000, nearly a month after the disaster that killed all 118 of the crew.
According to the transcript, Clinton begins the conversation with condolences over Kursk’s death, stressing that Putin “must have faced a lot of criticism.”
“I didn’t have a good choice. I was caught between bad and worse options. They told me that if I immediately launched a little submarine there and at least tried to save the boys, my grades would go up.… He shouldn’t be allowed to do something like that for the sake of public relations. We need to give priority to the real salvation of people, ”Putin replied.
Then the President of the Russian Federation thanked his American colleague for the support and returned to his rating: “Interestingly, subsequent polls showed that this incident did not affect my position. But I am very afraid that something like this will happen again. “
Clinton responded that the world has become more humane and that the American people perceive any tragedy in Russia very closely, as if «it happens with our family members. “” Sometimes it is difficult for a leader to do the right thing because of all these strong feelings, “said the then president of the United States.
In response, Putin indirectly confirmed that in the early days the Kremlin hid the death of the 118 crew members from their families.
“We feel powerless during this disaster. Now it seems that the entire crew died in 60 or 90 seconds. We couldn’t tell our relatives, but there was a hole in the hull about two meters in size, through which the first three compartments of the submarine were flooded. I don’t even know how we can get the bodies out. There is a lot of cod in these waters, there may be no meat on the bones. We try to stop all the hype but some people are weird and just keep feeding it. It’s just a fact of life, ”Putin told Clinton.
Two days after meeting with Clinton, Putin gave a famous interview to CNN. In response to host Larry King’s question, what happened to Kursk, Putin replied with a smile: “She drowned.”
On August 12, 2000, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk crashed and sank in the Barents Sea. There were 118 people on board, all of them died.
According to the official version, the submarine was killed by a torpedo explosion while preparing for a torpedo training attack.
Twenty years after the tragedy, the families of the victims still do not believe the definitive version of the causes of the disaster.
