Assigned to the Black Sea Fleet, she covered the evacuation of the Danube Flotilla to Odessa a few weeks after the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June. During the Sieges of Odessa and Sevastopol in 1941–1942, the ship ferried reinforcements and supplies into those cities, evacuated wounded and refugees and bombarded Axis troop positions. "Smyshlyony" struck a Soviet mine on 6 March 1942 and sank the following day as the flooding could not be contained. All but two of her crew perished when she sank.