Putin’s Policy of Lies and Hiding the Truth Began with the Loss of Kursk Submarine in 2000, Kuznetsov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 12 – Twenty years ago this week, the first great disaster of Vladimir Putin’s time in power took place: the sinking of the Kursk submarine with massive loss of life in large part because of Moscow’s refusal to accept outside assistance that might have saved the lives of Russian naval personnel on board. 

            But that tragedy has continued to cast a shadow on Russia because it marked the beginning of Putin’s policies of hiding the truth rather than exposing it and lying boldly and punishing any Russians or others who try to expose the truth of what the Kremlin has been doing, Boris Kuznetsov says.

            Kuznetsov, a lawyer, has sought to defend the interests of the members of the 55 families of Russian submariners who died when the Kursk sank. He has written a book about that event; and to try to shut him up, Moscow first launched a criminal case against him and then forced him to emigrate and obtain political asylum in the United States.

            Now, on the 20^th anniversary of the loss of the submarine, he has traced Putin’s policies of coverup from that event to what he describes as the coup d’etat the Kremlin leader has carried out with his constitutional amendments in an important and detailed article in Moscow’s New Times (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/196662?fcc).

            Most governments faced with such a tragedy would have launched an investigation into why it happened, brought those responsible to justice, and worked to ensure that nothing of the same kind ever happened again. But the Putin regime, while it did stage an investigation, concluded that coverups and lies serve its purposes far better.

            Consequently, what began with an effort to escape any responsibility for the Kursk disaster has become the state policy of the Kremlin leader, Kuznetsov argues.

            From the outset, Putin sought to avoid responsibility by blaming others, including the West and the oligarchs, and to prevent anyone from finding out about the true state of the Russian navy. It did not have any means of rescuing sailors from a downed submarine, even though other countries have developed such techniques.

            And in the years since first with regard to the Kursk and then ever more widely, Putin has adopted a three-pronged strategy whenever there are problems: first, denial and lies; second, expanding the number of things declared secret, and third, engaging in mythmaking by promoting Russian and even foreign films and stories presenting his alternative reality.

             Kuznetsov argues that “Putin began to lie with the Kursk and finished with the Constitution of the Russian Federation,” a document he has repeatedly said has gotten in the way of what he wants to do and that he has now gutted, opening the way to an untrammeled dictatorship.

            That tragic arc in Russia’s present-day history began with the Kursk, the loss of which is casting an ever-darkening shadow on the country’s future.