MOSCOW — A Russian military submarine designed to map and study the seafloor, but not armed or powered by a nuclear reactor, caught fire and killed 14 sailors, the Russian military said on Tuesday. The lethal fire broke out on a vessel based at the same Arctic port, Severomorsk, as the Kursk nuclear submarine that sank in 2000, killing 118 sailors in a searing tragedy for the Russian Navy that posed an early test of President Vladimir V. Putin’s leadership. In the Kursk sinking and subsequent accidents in Russia’s submarine fleet, the navy has been slow in acknowledging the gravity of emergencies or the scale of human loss or the environmental threat. The military announced the latest fire and casualties on Tuesday, but said the accident happened a day earlier. It said the sailors had died from smoke inhalation.

Source: International New York Times July 02, 2019 15:45 UTC