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October 21, 2001
The Russian nuclear sub Kursk has been raised and taken to Murmansk. There it was fitted with auxiliary pontoons and taken to a dry dock in Roslyakovo, in northern Russia. The sub will be broken up within six months at Nerpa shipyard (on Olenya Guba bay near Murmansk). This work will largely be paid for by the United States. This is the Co-operative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, a $3.1 billion project set up in 1997. CTR helps the Russians destroy nuclear weapons, missiles, submarine, silo launch systems, and chemical weapons. The Nerpa yard has broken up nine nuclear submarines, with five of these jobs paid for with CTR funds. Nerpa operates one dry dock and one floating dock. During the 1990s, Nerpa has broken up 44 of 109 decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines. Foreigners are not allowed to watch the scrapping, to maintain Russian submarine design secrets. Divers will place a marble memorial plaque on the seabed where Kursk went down, in a tribute to the lost crew.
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