The tragedy of the Kursk submarine is shocking proof of the poor state of Russia's armed forces, the unchanged mentality of its top brass and the need for President Putin to find a radically new strategy.
This is the conclusion drawn by Russian analysts and media yesterday, the seventh day of fruitless attempts to save any survivors among the 118-man crew trapped or dead inside the wrecked nuclear submarine sitting on the Arctic sea bed.
"It is either a horrendous violation of all existing navy rules or evidence of a horrendous decline," said Alexander Golts, military analyst of the respected Itogi magazine.
"This case showed that the reality has little in common with the demagogy about the revival of the armed forces and the navy in particular . . . It just showed the real state of the navy," he said.
The Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper wrote: "The tragedy of the Kursk proved that it is not just evil but criminal to build up unfounded illusions about [Russia's] defence ability."
The latest official version of the mysterious accident is that the Kursk hit some extremely heavy object and its first two sections, including the command centre, were destroyed.
Western analysts and intelligence officials speak of two explosions, the second more devastating than the first - perhaps a torpedo that exploded and detonated another warhead.
Either way, many servicemen are likely to have been killed immediately, with the rest unable to flee the sinking vessel.
Russia's own rescue equipment has proved inadequate to the task. Deep water capsules have been unable to dock with the Kursk, and what little hope there is now rests with a British stateof-the-art mini-sub being rushed to the site.
Deep water divers are being rushed from Norway because Russia's four fleets have such divers only on paper. In reality they have not been trained for years due to a lack of funds.
Special rescue submarines capable of working in deep waters were built in the 1980s but have not been overhauled in years and are now out of service, Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.
Admirals have been complaining that the fleet is ageing and they need new vessels, Mr Golts said. "But Kursk is a new submarine and nothing worked there [to save the crew]."
He said the navy's strategy of being present all over the world's oceans was a "fiction" and the Kursk was a good example.
"Why do we need submarines whose main task is to destroy the aircraft carriers of the United States? The same goes for the pride of our fleet, the heavy nuclear cruiser Pyotr Veliky [Peter the Great], which has the same exclusive purpose."
Mr Putin, usually firmly "hands-on", remained at his Black Sea retreat and made only one brief statement.
His predecessor, Mr Boris Yeltsin, all but ignored the armed forces and starved it of funds to carry out proper reforms.
But Mr Putin has been paying a lot of attention to the armed forces, prompting fears among liberals that Russia may again turn into a state dominated by its military-industrial complex.
He has heaped praise on the military, boosted its budget, flown on a supersonic jet and sailed on a nuclear submarine.
Despite this, the military continues to give him headaches.
In nearly a year, it has not been able to crush separatist guerrillas in Chechnya.
Two leading officers, The Defence Minister, Mr Igor Sergeyev, and the General Staff chief, Mr Anatoly Kvashnin, last month had a public row over the direction of reform and Mr Putin had to step in to quell it.
In the case of the Kursk, the military announced the disaster only two days after Saturday's accident, and leading officials involved have been making contradictory statements.
Meanwhile, Russia is still in shock from a bomb blast in central Moscow last week that killed 12 people - the latest in a series of urban bombings over the past year. "It is crystal clear that the result of this rescue operation will shock the country more than the terrorist acts in Moscow," said the Sevodnya daily.
"In this situation, the Kremlin will need scapegoats to calm the public."
Mr Golts agreed. "Of course there will be scapegoats - the question is on what level."
Nezavisimaya Gazeta commented: "This is not only a crisis of the Northern Fleet, but a crisis of the whole strategy of the armed forces reform carried out over many years."