Kremlin Gives Thanks to Britons Who Saved Russian Submarine

The Kremlin expressed its gratitude yesterday to a team of Britons who helped to rescue seven Russian sailors from their tiny submarine near the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

President Vladimir Putin's press service broke its almost complete silence over the crisis to express the Russian leader's thanks to "all participants in the operation to rescue the crew of the mini-submarine AS-28".

The message came after a frenzied 76 hours in which the Russian navy eventually accepted an offer of help from its British, US and Japanese counterparts to rescue the submariners trapped 190 metres below the surface. The Britons saved the sailors from death, according to Commander Ian Riches, who led the six man team. "If we'd not been able to cut them free ... they would have died," he said.

The British team, after a 30-hour race by plane, road and boat from Scotland to the sea rescue site, 75km off the far-eastern peninsula of Kamchatka, spent a tense five hours early yesterday morning in a desperate bid to free the submarine.

The rescue effort nearly stumbled, the Guardian can reveal, when the British Scorpio 45 had cut through 90% of the fishing net ropes and other cables tethering the submarine to debris stacked 25 metres above the seabed.

The British team was dismayed as the vessel refused to float up to the surface, and even tried pushing it with the Scorpio's robotic arms.

Commander Riches told the Guardian they then asked the submarine's crew to pump part of their precious air reserve into the submarine's ballast tanks.

Buoyant, the vessel broke free of the remaining net and rose to the surface at 0420 yesterday, with only hours of breathable air left.

The British team was due to meet Russia's defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, for an unspecified "celebration" today on Kamchatka. Mr Ivanov said yesterday: "We have seen in deeds, not in words, what the brotherhood of the sea means." He thanked the British for their "professional and proper" assistance.

Six of the Russian crew were able to walk off the rescue ship; the seventh remained on board because of ill-health.

Captain Vyacheslav Miloshevsky, the stricken submarine's ranking officer, told reporters before he was whisked to hospital: "We believed until the end that they would save us."

A navy spokesman, Igor Dygalo, told the Guardian: "The mood of the crew is light, thankful, like freed prisoners, you could say."

Captain Miloshevsky's sister-in-law, Svetlana, said he was healthy. "There are no problems, but he's just getting the psychological help anyone would need after so long in such a small space."