In August 2000, an explosion aboard the Russian submarine Kursk sent it to the bottom of the Barents Sea with 118 men aboard, some of them still alive for days afterward. This film, part of the Kursk: 10 Days That Shaped Putin series, reconstructs the disaster hour by hour, using first-hand testimony from an American submarine commander who tracked the events as they unfolded, families of the trapped submariners, and figures inside the Clinton White House as it weighed whether to offer help Moscow was reluctant to accept. Rescue divers describe finally reaching the wreck, and the film lays out why Russian officials delayed international assistance for so long, and what that delay cost. Beyond the mechanics of the sinking, the film treats the Kursk as a formative crisis for Vladimir Putin, newly installed as president, tracing how his handling of the disaster and the press coverage that followed shaped his relationship with the Russian public and the West.