The remains of Kursk captain Gennady Lyachin were the last to be identified, Leonid Troshin, chief spokesman of the prosecutor's office, told the Interfax news agency.

Lyashin's widow had confirmed the identification, he said.

Investigators have succeeded in identifying the remains of 114 crew members out of the 118 who died when the Kursk sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000, following a series of still unexplained explosions in its bow, Troshin said.

"This exceeds all our expectations, given the circumstances of the accident," he noted.

Some bodies were pulled from the Kursk in a special operation in November 2000, but most were recovered in an arduous salvage operation after the submarine was raised from the seabed last October and transferred to dry dock in Roslyakovo near the northern port city of Murmansk.

The operation cost the Russian government an estimated 70 million dollars (80 million euros), fulfilling President Vladimir Putin's promise to grieving relatives that the lost crew would be buried on land.

Last month Russia's navy chief Vladimir Kuroyedov gave the firmest indication to date that a torpedo explosion destroyed the Kursk, but was cautious not to say it was the definitive cause of the tragedy.

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