Putin to inaugurate new nuclear submarine

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would visit a northern shipyard to inaugurate a new nuclear submarine – a trip apparently intended to bolster the Navy's morale, shaken by the sudden weekend firing and discipline of several top admirals.

Putin told his Cabinet that he would visit the Sevmash shipyard in the northern town of Severodvinsk on Tuesday to launch the Gepard nuclear–powered submarine. The same shipyard launched the Kursk nuclear submarine, which exploded and sank in August 2000 in one of Russia's worst naval disasters and was hoisted from the Barents Sea floor in October.

Last week, Putin invited Northern Fleet chief Adm. Vyacheslav Popov to the Kremlin along with other participants of the Kursk salvage effort to praise them for their good work. But after hearing a top prosecutor's report on Sunday, the president said that Northern Fleet admirals should be disciplined for poor organization of the maneuvers during which the Kursk sank.

The Russian Navy chief, Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, quickly fired Popov and disciplined a dozen other admirals over the weekend. However, officials claimed that the punishment was not linked to the Kursk's sinking, the cause of which remains unknown.

Officials said that Popov and others were punished for the poor organization of the manoeuvres, but gave no details. The business daily Kommersant said Monday that the prosecutor's office had specifically blamed the navy chiefs for sending the Kursk to sea with a full set of weapons, and not just the one torpedo and one missile it was supposed to fire during the exercise.

In his speech before the Cabinet on Monday, Putin emphasized that next year, military spending must "have priority, even more so as we have worked out a serious and ambitious program of military reform."

The Gepard is the first nuclear submarine to be commissioned by the Navy since the Kursk disaster. Its construction began in 1991 but was stalled by a severe funding shortage.

The Gepard is of a different type and half the size of the Kursk, at 9,100 tons. It carries an array of supersonic nuclear–tipped cruise missiles and torpedoes and is among the fastest and quietest submarines in the world. The Russian Navy already has eight submarines of the same Bars class as the Gepard.