[6][7][8] According to some sources, Baton Rouge was written off for the high costs of repairing the damaged pressure hull, along with a programmed refueling.

This was not unusual; as part of post-Cold War restructuring, the U.S. Navy decommissioned 14 of the first 31 ships in the Los Angeles class instead of refueling them, most at between 17 and 19 years of service.

[9][10] Novomoskovsk, commanded by Captain First Rank Andrei Bulgarkov,[11] was performing combat training tasks at a site 105 nautical miles (194 km) north of Murmansk.

[14] The breaking waves created in the shallow waters of the Barents Sea generate background signals, so that when two submarines approach one another head-on, each detects the other when the distance between the two vessels is just a couple of hundred meters.

[17] The second clash between American and Russian submarines in a year unleashed a flurry of angry reactions, both inside the Clinton administration and in Yeltsin's Russia.

The news that the US Navy was still keeping a close watch on Russia's ports and bases came barely a week before a scheduled summit between the presidents of both countries.

"[18] Clinton's statement caused concern in the US Navy, but after a briefing for top officials, among them the new national security adviser, Anthony Lake, the submarine force got the green light to continue its activities in the Barents Sea, although at a greatly reduced pace.