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Remembering The Eternal Patrol

As cold and gray as the Barents Sea is, grieving relatives heart felt the same as they headed out to lay flowers on the waves above the sunken vessel of the 118 sailors who died, Russian television said.

Before setting off from Vidyayevo in northern Russia, where the submarine Kursk was based, many relatives of the crew clustered to watch the laying of a foundation stone for a memorial to the vessel.

Ambulances and medical workers stood at the edge of the crowd to help any relatives who became overwhelmed. The disaster has been a grueling ordeal for the survivors, many of whom found out about the sinking only from television reports, then endured days of waiting before the announcement that their sons and husbands were dead.

The flowers they were to lay on the waters include a wreath from President Vladimir Putin, news reports said.

Many of the sailors' relatives declined to join in a national day of mourning on Wednesday, demanding that the bodies of their sons and husbands be retrieved from the sea floor first.

Their bitter stance underlined widespread criticism of the government's slow and confused response to the Aug. 12 sinking of the Kursk. Much of the criticism has centered on Putin, who remained on vacation during the first days of the crisis and made his first public statement on the Kursk four days after it sank.

Moving to allay popular criticism, Putin on Wednesday said he felt "fully responsible and guilty" - an unusually candid statement in a country with a long tradition of authoritarian leaders.

On Monday, Putin met between 500 and 600 relatives and local residents. Independent television NTV showed Putin sitting and talking with Irina Lyachin, the wife of Kursk commander Gennady Lyachin, who died with the rest of the crew after the vessel sank on August 12.

Rescue efforts ended Monday when Norwegian divers who were part of a British-Norwegian team said the crew was dead. They found no abnormal radiation near or in the ship, but environmental groups such as Greenpeace call the Kursk "a ticking time bomb" and are urging its retrieval.

Amidst the clamor, Putin tried to be consoling, and top Russian military commanders took the extraordinary step of making full, formal apologies on national television.

"We have failed to protect them. Forgive us," Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said in a statement.

"It is impossible to believe it is all over," a Russian news agency quoted Putin as saying. "The grief is immeasurable, no words can console. My heart is aching but yours much more so."

Yet the apologies have not stemmed the harsh criticism Putin's government has faced for taking four days to seek international help, or for being evasive, and Russian officials still suggest that perhaps a foreign submarine collided with the Kursk and fled.

The divers said they could see the Kursk was blown open from the iside, from an explosion on board. They opened the hatch nine days after the ship went down and after less than 24 hours work on the wreck.

The Russians had tried for a week to attach one of their own miniature submarines to an escape hatch on the Kursk, but failed, in part blaming damage to an escape hatch and the ring that surrounds it.

"There is no doubt that the ring around the hatch was relatively undamaged," British Commodore David Russell said.

Russell said the rescue team might have been able to save the crew had it been summoned sooner.

Still remaining unanswered is the question of what to do about the submarine. The Norwegian divers are considering helping the Russians raise the ship, an extremely hazardous operation that Greenpeace recommends.

"The Kursk is a ticking environmental time bomb that must be made safe," said William Peden, Greenpeace's international disarmament campaigner.

Despite widespread dismay over the Kursk crisis, Putin's support does not appear to have been badly undermined, a poll indicated.

The poll by the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Research shows Putin's approval rating at 65 percent. That was down only one percentage point from the previous poll, the newspaper Segodnya on Thursday cited poll director Yuri Levada as saying.

Many had expected that Putin would respond to the Kursk disaster by firing top brass. Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and navy chief Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov submitted their resignations Wednesday over the loss of the Kursk, but Putin said he would not accept them.

Seeking scapegoats would be "the most mistaken response," he said on Russia's RTR television.

©2000 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press and Reuters Limited contributed to this report

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