Pravda.Ru's portrayal of the “Kursk” tragedy serves a basis for a film

PRAVDA.Ru represents the oldest and one of the most wide-known online news resources in Russian. The company will celebrate its 6th year anniversary in January!

PRAVDA.RU is also proud to be one of the first online resources to start its English version. English PRAVDA ranks highest among Russian news resources. We have already gotten used to the fact that we are capable of influencing Western media and what it writes about Russia.  

Nonetheless, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that one of our brief news stories triggered an immense reaction: it propelled French cinematographers to make a film based on the events outlined in the article. The article described the tragic events of August 2000, when Russian sailors sealed in a stainless steel coffin called “Kursk” were buried alive in Barents Sea.

We were the first among Russian online news agencies to present our own version of the events. According to the Pravda.Ru's report, Russian submarine “Kursk” has been wrecked by another submarine “Memphis”. Also, a detailed account was given regarding Mr. Putin’s decision to remain at his quarters in Sochi instead of traveling to epicenter of the tragedy. As it is known, Sochi has a remarkably equipped communication center designed specifically for government officials. Vladimir Putin was using the facility to contact Bill Clinton. No matter which way you look at it, in a situation when one country’s nuclear sub sinks another country’s nuclear sub, even slightly wrong political move would have lead to drastic results. Fortunately, the “incident” has been taken cared of in a professional manner.

It is noteworthy to mention that the article came about at the time when any attempt of the Russian media to unveil the mystery behind the wreckage of the world's “most perfect” underwater cruiser was immediately suppressed by Russian secret services.

It is worth remembering the search conducted at the office of “Versiya” after the newspaper had published a photograph of Norwegian naval base that had serviced “Memphis.” The West was really fascinated by our relatively short report regarding the subject matter (which in reality did not even exceed ten lines). Back then we were even experiencing technical difficulties due to high Internet traffic. Afterwards, many Western sources made reference to this article. 

However, this was just the beginning. A group of French journalists decided to conduct their own private investigation while taking PRAVDA.RU's story as a basis. The materials obtained by the journalists were later adopted into a film made by French film director Jean-Michel Carre. The film will premiere on France TV in the beginning of January.

Journalists from the Italian newspaper La Stampa had an opportunity to watch Carre's documentary. According to them, the film does not contain any factual evidence. However, the French filmmaker’s portrayal of the way people across the world observed the agony of Russian sailors on their TV screens had a great impact on our Italian colleagues.

PRAVDA.Ru will soon publish an exclusive interview with the French filmmaker.