The Poti naval base was organized by the Soviet government in July 1941, a month after the German invasion during World War II. Commanded by Major-General Mikhail Kumanin, the base operated as a part of the Black Sea Fleet and included two submarine divisions, a torpedo boat division, coastal guard boat division, two minesweepers, four coastal and six missile batteries, etc. After the German capture of Sevastopol and Novorossiysk in 1942, several destroyers were transferred to be based at Poti which, together with another Georgian port city, Batumi, functioned as a secondary harbor in the Black Sea Campaigns (1941–44). By the early 1990s, the Poti base had accommodated several smaller units of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, but became essentially defunct after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In December 1992, Russia withdrew all its vessels and ammunition from the Poti naval base, but an ethnic Georgian commander of one landing ship refused to obey Moscow’s order and displayed a Georgian flag. At almost the same time, the Georgian government created a Joint Naval Brigade, consisting of several boats, a battalion of marines, an artillery division, and a communication detachment. Since then, the Brigade has been enlarged and reequipped with the help of the NATO-member states.