MOSCOW: The British team who aided the rescue of seven Russian submariners from the depths of the Pacific flew home last night, as details emerged of the crew’s horrifying 76 hours spent in the icy dark, their vessel enmeshed in a fishing net. Pictured strolling the grounds of their hospital on the far eastern peninsula of Kamchatka, the crew said they had survived on only three to four gulps of water a day.

“The main thing was the lack of water,” crew member Alexander Uibin told Rossiya state television. “There was also a problem with oxygen, not critical but the body felt it was not enough.” His colleague, civilian engineer Gennady Volonin, said: “We understood we were trapped. We just had to wait for a decision. When they said that they had put everything into action, we lay flat and began to wait.” The captain of the vessel, Vyacheslav Miloshevsky, was so pessimistic about the Russian rescue operation that he wrote a letter to his wife bidding her farewell.

“He wrote to me when they understood that our people [the Russian navy] were doing the rescue operation”, his wife, Yelena, told the Guardian. “He understood it would be hopeless. But when he discovered the British submarine was working, he became hopeful again.” Ms Miloshevskaya also challenged the official version of events, that the accident happened at midday on Thursday. She said her husband had told her the accident “began on Wednesday. He did not say what time.” If true, it means the Russian navy may have waited up to 48 hours before publicising the accident on Friday morning and attracting international help. She added that her husband said they had 36 hours of air left when they were rescued on Sunday.

Ms Miloshevskaya met her husband for the first time in hospital on Monday morning. “I jumped on him and began to cry,” she said. “He said to me ‘don’t cry or I’ll cry too’.” Meanwhile, the British crew’s leader, Commander Ian Riches, and their robotic rescue vehicle’s two pilots, Peter Nuttall and Stuart Gold, were thanked by the Russian defence minister, Sergei Ivanov. After a rescue without any technical hitches, the crew were half an hour late to meet Mr Ivanov because their bus broke down.

“He’s a bit of a smooth guy, the Russian equivalent of Tony Blair,” said Mr Riches. “He comes over very well. His English was exceptionally good. He was at pains to tell us he had been on the phone yesterday with [defence secretary] John Reid to thank him for our efforts. I really believe those words came from the heart.”

Mr Riches added he was disappointed not to have met the crew. Three of the Britons were, after a buffet lunch, taken to a thermal spa to relax. “Hopefully I’ll get a few hours sleep tonight before we fly out tomorrow morning [10pm last night], and then maybe on the hard steel of the deck of the C17 carrier plane. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, rang Tony Blair on Monday, his press service told Interfax, “to express his gratitude to Great Britain for its assistance in the operation”. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service