Salvage work is to begin in April and, weather permitting, should be completed by August, said officials of the Kursk Foundation, marshalling unique maritime heavy-lifting and towing equipment for the complex project. The submarine's shattered nose cone will be cut off and left metres below the surface. Russian experts will deal with the 24 cruise missiles on board, which Moscow insists are not carrying nuclear warheads.
Russia has reassured the international community that the two nuclear reactors on board were automatically shut down when the vessel exploded and sank. But there are fears that the environment will suffer after radioactive leakage is caused by corrosive seawater and strong currents if the submarine is left untouched for too long. The foundation is after funding support from the US, Japan and Canada for the operation.
But Brussels is a special target, with high-level talks between the EU and Russia due in Moscow next week. American, Russian and Dutch companies will be involved in the three-stage recovery operation, in which the Kursk will be raised, secured and towed to Murmansk.
Divers will attach cables to the top of the submarine and a giant barge, specially fitted to tow the 14,tonne boat, will make the the three-day voyage. Environmental groups have warned that lifting the Kursk could be too dangerous, risking a breakup which would rupture the reactors' protective casings, endangering fish stocks and local wildlife.
Work by a Russian commission investigating the disaster has still not determined what happened. Officials have repeatedly suggested that the Kursk collided with a foreign submarine, but say an internal explosion could also have been the cause. European Union countries are being asked to pay millions of dollars to raise the Kursk, the Russian nuclear-powered submarine which sank with all hands in the Barents Sea last summer.
