Moscow, Aug 15 : Russia has refused to respond to the offer of help by US, Britain and France, in rescuing the 116 crew-members on board the Kursk nuclear submarine, stricken in the Barents Sea since Sunday.Making it clear that Russia was not looking for any outside help, to evacuate sub crew-members, a navy's spokesman said today that the navy would work with all its strength and means until the last moment.The refusal came as Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov announcedthat navy was preparing to launch an all-out operation to evacuate the sailors from the crippled Kursk anytime on Tuesday, provided the bad weather in the Barents Sea improved.Klebanov heads the government commission, which has been created on the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin to investigate the accident'scauses.Kremlin's press service said that commander of Russian navy Adm VladimirKuroyedev was regularly posting Putin with the latest developments inthe rescue operation, who is vacationing at the Black Sea resort of Sochi.NTV reported that bad weather was hampering navy's rescue operation. A storm measuring five points continued to rage in the area of the stricken sub, but there were forecasts that it might slacken towards the evening, it said."Then we will most resolutely begin the evacuation," Klebanov said, in aspecial appearance on Russian television. He added that "All the necessarymeans to do so have been concentrated in the accident area."Russian media reported that high winds and bad weather had forced some rescue ships from the accident area.Adm Kuroyedev dismissed today the Russian media speculation about the possibility of a collision with a foreign submarine, saying "anexplosion in the first torpedo compartment" was the main possible cause of the accident on Kursk.He told Interfax news agency that the chances of rescuing the submarineand the sailors were "quite small."Adm Kuroyedev said that the lock apparatuses for rescuing the crew-membersare located in the main body of the Kursk, not the nose of the sub, whichmeans that even if the forward sections are flooded, the crew-members stillhas a chance of escaping.Kursk remained stranded nearly 500 feet below the surface of the BarentsSea on Tuesday, its crew-members running short on oxygen, as the twonuclear reactors closed.Navy officials declined to say how long the oxygen supply would last. Russian media suggested that Kursk had oxygen to last for 48 hours.There are reports that Russian vessels on the surface were pumping air intothe sub.So far, the navy has denied any casualties in the accident.
