The Russian navy's North Sea fleet will provide the necessary back-up at the site of the Kursk disaster. The recovery mission comes on the heels of a severe backlash against Putin for inaction in the first days after the Kursk sank on Aug. 12. Putin promised relatives of the dead sailors that he would raise the bodies from the bed of the Barents Sea after he returned from a holiday in southern Russia when the crisis broke. The authorities were also criticized for being too slow to request foreign help when it became apparent that Russian rescuers could not get into the submarine. Authorities have still not said conclusively what caused the explosions and sinking of the Kursk, which went down during military exercises.
Russian officials say the most likely scenario was a collision with a foreign submarine.
But the United States, which has acknowledged that its submarines were monitoring the military exercises, has denied that. American officials say the Kursk may have gone down after a torpedo misfire. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. In This Series Complete Coverage of Russian Sub A number of funds have been set up to help families who lost loved ones on the Kursk. The English-language Moscow Times has a list of where to send donations .