'Until bodies are found, we will refuse to mourn'

Many relatives of the victims of the Kursk disaster, still hoping their husbands or sons might be alive in the wreckage of the submarine, refused to take part in mourning ceremonies as flags flew at half-mast across Russia yesterday.

Many relatives of the victims of the Kursk disaster, still hoping their husbands or sons might be alive in the wreckage of the submarine, refused to take part in mourning ceremonies as flags flew at half-mast across Russia yesterday.

Oksana Dudko, whose husband, Sergei, was deputy commander of the submarine, which sank in the Barents Sea north of Murmansk, said: "Until the bodies of our husbands are retrieved, until we see them with our own eyes, we will not mourn."

Many of the 500 relatives of the 118 crew of the Kursk, who have gathered at the naval village of Vidyayevo, near Murmansk, are upset at the speed with which national mourning was declared. Irina Belozorova, the wife of an officer, said: "We will not even begin to think of ourselves as widows until they show us the bodies. We have every reason to believe our menfolk are still alive, because not all the submarine's compartments have been searched."

President Vladimir Putin cut short his visit to the scene of the disaster after meeting relatives. They asked him to postpone a plan to lay a wreath where the submarine sank until the bodies had been recovered. A woman at the meeting shouted: "When will we get them back, alive or dead? Answer as the president!" Mr Putin promised the equivalent of £4,800 for the family of each crew member.

Yesterday Russian television said relatives were divided on what to do and that some would lay a wreath today.

In a television interview last night Mr Putin said he felt responsibility and guilt for what had happened but would not punish anybody until there had been a full investigation.

British and Norwegian divers who penetrated the wreck earlier in the week said there was no hope anybody could have survived. Most of the crew would have died instantly on 12 August, when an explosion - probably of a torpedo - tore apart the forward half of the submarine.

Any operation to raise the Kursk would take months of planning and could not be carried out until next summer. Julian Thomson, a spokesman for Stolt Offshore, the company whose divers opened the wreck, said: "In practical terms I'd say that a lifting would be in summer next year at the earliest, if we can find a safe way of doing it." He said it might be easier to raise the wreck with the bodies inside.

In the rest of Russia yesterday flags flew at half-mast and some television and radio stations dropped shows, although others continued to show soap operas. Despite the hopes of the relatives, other Russians accept that everybody on the Kursk perished.

Mr Putin has been severely criticised by the media for his failure to return from holiday after the submarine sank but a poll yesterday suggested that this has had little impact on his popularity.

The poll, by the All-Russian Public Opinion Centre, indicated that 65 per cent of Russians support his efforts as president, compared to 73 per cent at the end of last month.

The Russian navy continues to insist the Kursk sank as the result of a collision with a foreign surface vessel or submarine but has produced no convincing evidence. At first it said that Russian sailors had seen green-and-white buoys near the scene of the accident which might have indicated a foreign presence but these turned out to be cabbages thrown from the Russian flagship, Peter the Great.

While some naval commanders may face dismissal because of the badly organised rescue, the navy as a whole is likely to use the accident to demand more money, arguing that the tragedy was the inevitable consequence of the service being starved of resources. An admiralty report last year said that its maintenance budget was between 8 per cent and 10 per cent of what was needed.

Even before the Kursk sank the navy was pushing its submarines as the best option for Russia to maintain its nuclear deterrent, as its land-based missiles are getting older and cannot be replaced.