Nuke Sub Collision Not Proved

There is no direct evidence that there was a collision of nuclear submarine Kursk with another object underwater, Vice Premier, Minister of Industry, Science and Technologies Ilya Klebanov said during a press conference in Moscow. Klebanov stressed that the State Investigating Commission had mentioned oblique evidence of a collision many times before. "If the collision version is to be thought truth, I cannot say now," Klebanov underlined. Speaking of the time when the State Commission is to ultimately voice the causes of the Kursk wreck, the Vice Premier has said that the commission's work is not planned ahead so there are no fixed dates for it. Klebanov remarked that the commission has been submitted an additional amount of materials concerning the Kursk wreck. They are being studied presently in the best military schools of the country. When asked of the situation with the first compartment of the submarine, the official said that "certain fragments of it will be uplifted in the summer of 2002." Klebanov laid a special emphasis on the fact that the lifting of the first compartment would be carried out mostly by the Russian Navy.