ST.PETERSBURG. Dec 20 (Interfax-Northwest) - Forensic experts established the identity of yet another three crewmembers of the nuclear powered submarine Kursk at Severomorsk's army hospital on Thursday.
The Northern Fleet's military prosecutor Vladimir Mulov told Interfax that Warrant Officer Vladimir Khivuk, Lieutenant Captain Maxim Safonov, and Warrant Officer Konstantin Kozyrev were identified.
According to the prosecutor, even though according to the manning table these submariners should have been in the second compartment, their bodies were found in the third.
Khivuk was drafted into the Northern Fleet from the town of Obninsk in the Kaluga region, and Safonov was from the town of Reutovo outside Moscow. Kozyrev resided in the Murmansk region, but he will be buried in St. Petersburg, where his widow has been given an apartment.
A total of 69 of the 73 seamen recovered from the submarine after it was put into the Roslyakovo dock in the Murmansk region have been identified to date. 12 bodies were raised by divers during an operation in October-November last year.
In all, there were 118 submariners aboard the Kursk when it sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000.
The final causes of the Kursk disaster have not been officially announced.