TRIBUTE was paid today to British divers involved in the operation to raise the Kursk as the wreck of the Russian nuclear submarine was lifted clear of the seabed.

A team of around 30 divers - spearheaded by North-East engineer Malcolm Dailey - most from the UK, have been working since July to retrieve the stricken vessel in a painstaking and hazardous task nearly 360ft down.

The submarine exploded and sank in the Barents Sea in August last year, killing all 118 Russians on board.

The damaged structure was today being raised from the sea bed after the last of 26 cables was successfully attached to its hull over the weekend.

Aberdeen-based company DSND Subsea supplied a diving team and vessel as part of the Dutch-led salvage consortium.

Mr Dailey, of Norton, near Stockton, who is the mission's project manager is co-ordinating the team of divers.

Company spokesman Einar Skorgen said its divers had been vital to the success of the operation so far.

He said: "To have carried through such an operation under so many uncertainties which exist on a destroyed nuclear submarine is tribute to the work of the diving team.

"The team have had use all their experience, knowledge and commonsense and they have managed to play their part without any accident.

"Without the diving team and without their experience and quality, the operation would have been impossible to do."

The British divers have been assisted by around half a dozen Russian divers over the months of working around the wreck.

The salvage team were predicting the Kursk would start to be moved away from the area by the Giant 4 barge by noon today.

The barge had already reeled in four anchors and was due to turn in the direction of land. The Kursk is to be towed to a dry dock in Roslyakovo, near the Russian port of Murmansk.

The Russian commander overseeing the operation said the barge would start moving toward shore even before the submarine was raised completely to the surface.

Vice Admiral Mikhail Motsak said: "Depending on the wave resistance, we'll figure out the speed of towing, which will likely be 2.5 to 3 knots per hour.

"If everything goes fine, the barge will take its place in the dock in one to one-and-a-half days."

Larissa van Seumeren, a spokeswoman for the Dutch consortium recovering the sub, said the lifting was proceeding more quickly than planned because the Kursk was less deeply embedded in the sea bed than expected.

"We started to pull and there was almost no suction," she said from Murmansk. "It was lifted up easily."

Divers were manually inspecting the submarine, checking gauges monitoring radiation and the vessel's angle in relation to the barge, said Captain Igor Bobenko, a spokesman for the Russian Northern Fleet.

The Kursk sank 356 feet below the surface. The salvage operation is costing the Russian government about £42 million.