Some analysts say keeping his distance from the disaster may help Putin, by underlining his message that Russia needs deep military reforms, bigger defence budgets and a faster pace of modernisation. He will easily convince people that he needs more political leeway to deal with the culprits and set things in order. But even if Putin can turn the disaster to his advantage, there is no prospect of the Russian Navy doing so. Wednesday's edition of the daily newspaper Segodnya painted a picture of careerist cowardice and bungling at navy headquarters in Moscow. It quoted senior navy sources revealing that admirals and officers were frightened of taking decisions for fear of being fired.
Nobody wants to take responsibility.
Subordinates are demanding written instructions from their bosses for all technical decisions on the Kursk. But it will suffer more if the operation to save the Kursk ends in failure. For some reason the admirals think everything will end in political catastrophe if a single Russian sailor is rescued from a Russian submarine with foreign help. With the world hanging on every word from the navy about the fate of the sunken submarine and its crew, officials have been evasive, contradictory, or wrong about even the most basic information. It's half and half.