BELEAGUERED, AUG 22: Russian President Vladimir Putin was flying to the Northern Fleet base of Severomorsk on Tuesday to pay tribute to 118 sailors who died in the submarine Kursk, and possibly face the relatives' wrath.The Kremlin gave no details and it was not clear if Putin would meet the relatives, about 500 of whom massed at the Arctic naval base of Vedyayevo where the nuclear-powered Kursk started its last mission.Putin, who has ordered a day of mourning on Wednesday, has faced an unprecedented barrage of criticism at home and abroad for not breaking his Black Sea holiday as soon as the disaster became known, and for being too slow in requesting foreign aid.The Russian media was not in a forgiving mood, and kept up their fierce criticism of Putin's leadership, the heaviest he has experienced since taking over power at the beginning of the year."God, let their souls rest in peace," said a banner headline in the Vremya MN newspaper. Another read: "The reputation of the Russian leadership is lying on the bottom of the Barents Sea.""Nine days of national shame," said a headline in the NovyeIzvestia newspaper."Those who carried out dive after dive, day and night in the icy waters with the equipment they had, they did all they could. Those who pretended to be a superpower, they will not be excused," the daily Izvestia said."A hot political autumn awaits Putin," Vremya MN said, adding: "The catastrophe in the Barents Sea has become a cause to create a united opposition against the president."The diver were preparing to return home on Tuesday after sending a remote-controlled video camera into the Kursk during the night to film the inside of the submarine to help Russian efforts to raise the bodies or salvage the wreck."The Seaway Eagle lowered a camera into the submarine. The results have been given to the Russians," armed forces spokesman Captain Erland Raanes said. None of the divers went inside the wreck after finding it flooded.Russia has asked for Norwegian help in bringing the sailors'bodies to the surface, and Oslo is considering the request, though it was clear that any operation could take weeks.The Seaway Eagle's owners, Stolt Offshore, has expressed a willingness to accept the Russian request for help.The Norwegian-led divers, who worked on the seabed 108 metres (354 ft) down, were due to start a five-day decompression regime in a special chamber aboard the Seaway.US Defence Secretary William Cohen said in Milwaukee the tragedy underscored the need for Russia to improve its training."They don't have the rigour in their training regimes like we do," he told Reuters. "We should be eve more dedicated to our training in the light of this tragedy."Russian officials have said the most likely cause of the accident was an initial explosion, either from inside the vessel or caused by a collision, which wrecked the front of the sub and sent it to the seabed at high speed. That impact led to a detonation of the Kursk's torpedoes, a much bigger blast.
