Gessen, M. — The Man Without a Face The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin [2012]

“Cancel the mourning immediately!” someone interrupted him from the other end of the hall. [A national day of mourning had been declared for the following day.]

“Mourning?” Putin asked. “I was, like you, full of hope to the last, I still am, at least for a miracle. But there is a fact we know for certain: People have died.”

“Shut up!” someone screamed.

“I am speaking of people who have definitely died. There are people like that in the submarine, for certain. That’s who the mourning is for. That’s all.”

Someone tried to object, but he would not let them.

“Listen to me, listen to what I’m about to say. Just listen to me! There have always been tragedies at sea, including the time when we thought we were living in a very successful country. There have always been tragedies. But I never thought that things were in this kind of condition.” …

“Why did you take so long in attracting foreign help?” a young woman asked.

She had a brother aboard the submarine. Putin took a long time explaining. He said that the construction of the submarine dated back to the end of the 1970s, and so did all the rescue equipment that the Northern Fleet had. He said that [defense minister] Sergeev called him on the 13th at seven in the morning, and until then Putin had known nothing…. He said that foreign aid had been offered on the 15th and had been accepted right away….

“Don’t we have those kinds of divers ourselves?” someone shouted out in despair.

“We don’t have crap in this country!” the president answered furiously.

The article reported that Putin spent two hours and forty minutes with the families of the