On 29 October Yavuz bombarded Sevastopol in her first operation against Imperial Russia, though the Ottoman Empire was not yet at war with the Entente; Souchon conducted the operation to force Turkey into the war on the side of Germany. A 25.4 cm (10 in) shell struck the ship in the after funnel, but it failed to detonate and did negligible damage. Two other hits inflicted minor damage. The ship and her escorts passed through an inactive Russian minefield during the bombardment. As she returned to Turkish waters, Yavuz came across the Russian minelayer Prut which scuttled herself with 700 mines on board. During the engagement the escorting Russian destroyer Lieutenant Pushkin was damaged by two of Yavuz's secondary battery 15 cm (5.9 in) shells. In response to the bombardment, Russia declared war on 1 November, thus forcing the Ottomans into the wider world war. France and Great Britain bombarded the Turkish fortresses guarding the Dardanelles on 3 November and formally declared war two days later. From this engagement, the Russians drew the conclusion that the entire Black Sea Fleet would have to remain consolidated so it could not be defeated in detail (one ship at a time) by Yavuz.Yavuz, escorted by Midilli, intercepted the Russian Black Sea Fleet 17 nautical miles (31 km; 20 mi) off the Crimean coastline on 18 November as it returned from a bombardment of Trebizond. Despite the noon hour the conditions were foggy and none of the capital ships were spotted initially. The Black Sea Fleet had experimented with concentrating fire from several ships under the control of one "master" ship before the war, and Evstafi held her fire until Ioann Zlatoust, the master ship, could see Yavuz. When the gunnery commands were finally received they showed a range over 4,000 yards (3,700 m) in excess of Evstafi's own estimate of 7,700 yards (7,000 m), so Evstafi opened fire using her own data before Yavuz turned to fire its broadside. She scored a hit with her first salvo as a 12-inch shell partially penetrated the armor casemate protecting one of Yavuz's 15-centimeter (5.9 in) secondary guns. It detonated some of the ready-use ammunition, starting a fire that filled the casemate and killed the entire gun crew. A total of thirteen men were killed and three were wounded.Yavuz returned fire and hit Evstafi in the middle funnel; the shell detonated after it passed through the funnel and destroyed the antennae for the fire-control radio, so that Evstafi could not correct Ioann Zlatoust's inaccurate range data. The other Russian ships either used Ioann Zlatoust's incorrect data or never saw Yavuz and failed to register any hits. Yavuz hit Evstafi four more times, although one shell failed to detonate, before Souchon decided to break contact after 14 minutes of combat. The four hits out of nineteen 28 cm (11 in) shells fired killed 34 men and wounded 24.The following month, on 5–6 December, Yavuz and Midilli provided protection for troop transports, and on 10 December, Yavuz bombarded Batum. On 23 December, Yavuz and the protected cruiser Hamidiye escorted three transports to Trebizond. While returning from another transport escort operation on 26 December, Yavuz struck a mine that exploded beneath the conning tower, on the starboard side, about one nautical mile outside the Bosphorus. The explosion tore a 50-square-meter (540 sq ft) hole in the ship's hull, but the torpedo bulkhead held. Two minutes later, Yavuz struck a second mine on the port side, just forward of the main battery wing barbette; this tore open a 64-square-meter (690 sq ft) hole. The bulkhead bowed in 30 cm (12 in) but retained watertight protection of the ship's interior. However, some 600 tons of water flooded the ship. There was no dock in the Ottoman Empire large enough to service Yavuz, so temporary repairs were effected inside steel cofferdams, which were pumped out to create a dry work area around the damaged hull. The holes were patched with concrete, which held for seve

Question: Was the minefield active or inactive?
Answer: inactive