The two nuclear reactors were defuelled and the ship was cut up for scrap. Finally recognising the hazard of the HTP-fuelled torpedoes, the Russian Navy ordered all of them to be removed from service. Putin accepted the resignation of Igor Sergeyev from his position as Minister of Defence on 28 March 2001 and made him his assistant on strategic stability. He replaced him with Sergei Ivanov, who had previously been secretary of the Security Council of Russia. The position of Minister of Defence had always been filled by a professional member of the military. Ivanov had retired from the military in 2000, so his appointment as Minister of Defence while a civilian shocked the Russian military. On 1 December 2001, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov presented a preliminary report to Putin. Ustinov wrote that the entire exercise had been "poorly organized" and that the probe had revealed "serious violations by both Northern Fleet chiefs and the "Kursk" crew." Shortly afterward, Putin transferred the Northern Fleet commander, Vyacheslav Popov, and his chief of staff, Admiral Mikhail Motsak. As is common in such circumstances, both soon obtained jobs elsewhere in the government. Popov became a representative for the Murmansk region in the Federation Council, and Motsak became deputy presidential envoy for the North-Western Federal District. Popov and Motsak had championed the story that the accident had been caused by a collision with a NATO submarine. When Putin dismissed them, he made a point of repudiating the collision theory. In another example of a lateral transfer, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov had been an outspoken advocate of the theory that the "Kursk" had collided with a foreign submarine. He had also been in charge of the rescue operation and follow-up inquiry. In February 2002, Putin removed him from his position as Deputy Prime Minister and made him Minister of Industry, Science, and Technology. Putin dismissed the Northern Fleet's submarine commander, Vice Admiral Oleg Burtsev, and in total removed 12 high-ranking officers in charge of the Northern Fleet. Paradoxically, he said their dismissal had nothing to do with the "Kursk" disaster, but that they had been responsible for "serious flaws in the organizations of the service." However, all 12 had been involved with the exercise, the rescue operations, or the submarine itself. All were transferred to equal positions elsewhere in the government or in the business sector. As a result of the disaster, Russia began participating in NATO search and rescue exercises in 2011.