Soviet Navy The Soviet Navy ( , literally " Military Maritime Fleet of the USSR " ) was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces . Often referred to as the Red Fleet , the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO , where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean from North America to Western Europe . The Soviet Navy was divided into four major fleets : the Northern , Pacific , Black Sea , and Baltic Fleets ; under separate command was the Leningrad Naval Base . The Caspian Flotilla was a smaller force operating in the land - locked Caspian Sea . The 5th Operational Squadron in the Mediterranean drew its units from the Black Sea , Baltic , and Northern Fleets ; the Indian Ocean Squadron primarily from the Pacific Fleet . Other components included Naval Aviation , Naval Infantry ( the Soviet equivalent of marines ) , and Coastal Artillery . Most of the Soviet Navy was reformed into the Russian Navy after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 , while some elements became the basis of the Ukrainian , Azerbaijani and Georgian navies . History . Russian Civil War . The Soviet Navy was based on a republican naval force formed from the remnants of the Imperial Russian Navy , which had been almost completely destroyed in the Revolution of 1917 , the Russian civil war , and the Kronstadt rebellion . During the revolution , sailors deserted their ships at will and generally neglected their duties . The officers were dispersed ( some were killed by the Red Terror , some joined the " White " ( anti - communist ) armies , and others simply resigned from the Navy ) and most of the sailors left their ships . Work stopped in the shipyards , where uncompleted ships deteriorated rapidly . The Black Sea Fleet fared no better than the Baltic . The Bolshevik revolution entirely disrupted its personnel , with mass murders of officers ; the ships were allowed to decay to unserviceability . At the end of April 1918 , German troops entered the Crimea and started to advance towards the Sevastopol naval base . The more effective ships were moved from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk where , after an ultimatum from Germany , they were scuttled by Vladimir Lenin ' s order . The ships remaining in Sevastopol were captured by the Germans and then , after November 1918 , by the British . On 1 April 1919 , when Red Army forces captured Crimea , the British squadron had to withdraw , but before leaving they damaged all the remaining battleships and sank thirteen new submarines . When a White Army captured Crimea in 1919 , it rescued and reconditioned a few units . At the end of the civil war , Wrangel ' s fleet , a White fleet , moved to Bizerta in French Tunisia , where it was interned . The first ship of the revolutionary navy could be considered the rebellious Imperial Russian cruiser , whose crew joined the Bolsheviks . Sailors of the Baltic fleet supplied the fighting force of the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution . Some imperial vessels continued to serve after the revolution , albeit with different names . The Soviet Navy , established as the " Workers ' and Peasants ' Red Fleet " ( Russian : Рабоче - Крестьянский Красный флот , " Raboche - Krest ' yansky Krasny Flot " or RKKF ) by a 1918 decree of the Soviet government , was less than service - ready during the interwar years . As the country ' s attentions were largely directed internally , the Navy did not have much funding or training . An indicator of its reputation was that the Soviets were not invited to participate with the Washington Naval Treaty , which limited the size and capabilities of the most powerful navies . The greater part of the old fleet was sold by the Soviet government to Germany for scrap . In the Baltic Sea there remained only three much - neglected battleships , two cruisers , some ten destroyers , and a few submarines . Despite this state of affairs , the Baltic Fleet remained a significant naval formation , and the Black Sea Fleet also provided a basis for expansion . There also existed some thirty minor - waterways combat flotillas . Interwar Period . During the 1930s , as the industrialization of the Soviet Union proceeded , plans were made to expand the Soviet Navy into one of the most powerful in the world . Approved by the Labour and Defence Council in 1926 , the Naval Shipbuilding Program included plans to construct twelve submarines ; the first six were to become known as the " Dekabrist " class . Beginning 4 November 1926 , " Technical Bureau Nº 4 " ( formerly the Submarine Department , and still secret ) , under the leadersip of B . M . Malinin , managed the submarine construction works at the Baltic Shipyard . In subsequent years , 133 submarines were built to designs developed during Malinin ' s management . Additional developments included the formation of the Pacific Fleet in 1932 and the Northern Fleet in 1933 . The forces were to be built around a core of powerful " Sovetsky Soyuz " - class battleship s . This building program was only in its initial stages by the time the German invasion forced its suspension in 1941 . The Winter War . The Soviet Navy had some minor action in the Winter War of 1939 – 1940 on the Baltic Sea , limited mainly to cruisers and battleships fighting artillery duels with Finnish fort s . The Great Patriotic War . After the beginning of the Second World War , many sailors and naval guns were detached to reinforce the Red Army ; these reassigned naval forces participated with every major action on the Eastern Front . Soviet naval personnel had especially significant roles on land in the battles for Odessa , Sevastopol , Stalingrad , Novorossiysk , Tuapse , and Leningrad . The composition of the Soviet fleets in 1941 included : In various stages of completion were another 219 vessels including 3 battleships , 2 heavy and 7 light cruisers , 45 destroyers , and 91 submarines . Included in the totals above are some pre - World War I ships ( " Novik " - class destroyers , some of the cruisers , and all the battleships ) , some modern ships built in the USSR and Europe ( like the Italian - built destroyer " Tashkent " and the partially completed German cruiser ) . During the war , many of the vessels on the slips in Leningrad and Nikolayev were destroyed ( mainly by aircraft and mines ) , but the Soviet Navy received captured Romanian destroyers and Lend - Lease small craft from the U . S . , as well as the old Royal Navy battleship ( renamed " Arkhangelsk " ) and the United States Navy cruiser ( renamed " Murmansk " ) in exchange for the Soviet part of the captured Italian navy . In the Baltic Sea , after Tallinn ' s capture , surface ships were blockaded in Leningrad and Kronstadt by minefields , where they participated with the anti - aircraft defense of the city and bombarded German positions . One example of Soviet resourcefulness was the battleship " Marat " , an aging pre - World War I ship sunk at anchor in Kronstadt ' s harbor by German " Stuka " s in 1941 . For the rest of the war , the non - submerged part of the ship remained in use as a grounded battery . Submarines , although suffering great losses due to German and Finnish anti - submarine actions , had a major role in the war at sea by disrupting Axis navigation in the Baltic Sea . In the Black Sea , many ships were damaged by minefields and Axis aviation , but they helped defend naval bases and supply them while besieged , as well as later evacuating them . Heavy naval guns and courageous sailors helped defend port cities during long sieges by Axis armies . In the Arctic Ocean , Soviet Northern Fleet destroyers ( " Novik " - class , Type 7 , and Type 7U ) and smaller craft participated with the anti - aircraft and anti - submarine defense of Allied convoys conducting Lend - Lease cargo shipping . In the Pacific Ocean , the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan before 1945 , so some destroyers were transferred to the Northern Fleet . From the beginning of hostilities , Soviet Naval Aviation provided air support to naval and land operations involving the Soviet Navy . This service was responsible for the operation of shore - based floatplanes , long - range flying boats , catapult - launched and vessel - based planes , and land - based aircraft designated for naval use . As post - war spoils , the Soviets received several Italian warships and much German naval engineering and architectural documentation . Cold War . In February 1946 the Red Fleet was renamed the Soviet Navy ( ) , literally the " Soviet Military Maritime Fleet " . After the war , the Soviets concluded that they needed a navy that could disrupt supply lines , and display a small naval presence to the developing world . As the resources it needed were available on the Eurasian land mass , it did not need a navy to protect a large commercial fleet , as the western navies were configured to do . Later countering seaborne nuclear delivery systems became another significant objective of the navy , and an impetus for expansion . The Soviet Navy was structured around submarines and small , maneuverable , tactical vessels . The Soviet shipbuilding program kept yards busy constructing submarine s based upon World War II German " Kriegsmarine " designs , and were launched with great frequency during the immediate post - war years . Afterwards , through a combination of indigenous research and technology obtained through espionage from Nazi Germany and the Western nations , the Soviets gradually improved their submarine designs , though they initially lagged the NATO countries by a decade or two . The Soviets were quick to equip their surface fleet with missile s of various sorts . Indeed it became a feature of Soviet design to place large missiles onto relatively small , but fast , missile boat s , while in the West such an approach would never have been considered tactically feasible . The Soviet Navy did also possess several very large and well - armed guided - missile cruisers , like those of the " Kirov " and " Slava " classes . By the 1970s , Soviet submarine technology was in some respects more advanced than in the West , and several of their submarine types were considered superior to their American rivals . The 5th Operational Squadron ( ) operated in the Mediterranean Sea . The squadron ' s main function was to prevent largescale naval ingress into the Black Sea , which could bypass the need for any invasion to be over the Eurasian land mass . Flagship of the squadron was for a long period the Sverdlov class cruiser " Zhdanov " . Carriers and aviation . Large carriers were not needed to support the naval strategy of disrupting sea lines of communication . Moreover , among the armed services the Navy was lowest in priority in the consideration of the Party ' s management . Premiers Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev considered aircraft carriers overly expensive , time - consuming , and vulnerable to attack . . The Soviet Navy still had the mission of confronting Western submarines , creating a need for large surface vessels to carry anti - submarine helicopters . During 1968 and 1969 the " Moskva " - class helicopter carriers were first deployed , succeeded by the first of four aircraft - carrying cruisers of the " Kiev " class in 1973 . Both of these types were capable of operating ASW helicopters , and the " Kiev " class also operated V / STOL aircraft ( " e . g . " the Yak - 38 ' Forger ' ) ; they were designed to operate for fleet defense , primarily within range of land - based Soviet Naval Aviation aircraft . During the 1970s the Soviets began Project OREL , whose stated purpose was to create an aircraft carrier capable of basing fixed - wing fighter aircraft in defense of the deployed fleet . The project was canceled during the planning stages when strategic priorities shifted once more . It was during the 1980s that the Soviet Navy acquired its first true aircraft carrier , " Tbilisi " , subsequently renamed " Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov " , which carries Sukhoi Su - 33 ' Flanker - D ' and MiG - 29 fighters , and Ka - 27 helicopters . A distinctive feature of Soviet aircraft carriers has been their offensive missile armament ( as well as long - range anti - aircraft warfare armament ) , again representing a fleet - defense operational concept , in distinction to the Western emphasis on shore - strike missions from distant deployment . A second carrier ( pre - commissioning name " Varyag " ) was under construction when the Soviet Union disintegrated . Construction stopped and the ship was sold , incomplete , to China by Ukraine . It was commissioned into the People ' s Liberation Army Navy in 2012 as " Liaoning " . Soon after the launch of this second " Kuznetsov " - class ship , the Soviet Navy began the construction of an improved aircraft carrier design , , which was to have been slightly larger than the " Kuznetsov " class and nuclear - powered . The project was terminated , and what little structure had been initiated in the building ways was scrapped . In part to perform the functions usual to carrier - borne aircraft , the Soviet Navy deployed large numbers of strategic bomber s in a maritime role , with the " Aviatsiya Voenno - Morskogo Flota " ( AV - MF , or Naval Aviation service ) . Strategic bombers like the Tupolev Tu - 16 ' Badger ' and Tu - 22M ' Backfire ' were deployed with high - speed anti - shipping missile s . The primary role of these aircraft was the interception of NATO supply convoys traveling the sea lines of communication between Europe and North America , and thus countering Operation REFORGER . Submarines . Due to the USSR ' s geographic position , submarines were considered the capital ships of the Navy . It was submarines that could penetrate attempts at blockade , either in the constrained waters of the Baltic and Black Seas or in the remote reaches of the USSR ' s western Arctic . Surface ships clearly were much easier to find and attack . The USSR had entered World War II with more submarines than Germany , but geography and the speed of the German attack precluded it from effectively using its more numerous fleet to advantage . Because of its opinion that " quantity had a quality of its own " and the insistence of Fleet Admiral Gorshkov , the Soviet Navy continued to operate many first - generation missile submarines , built in the early 1960s , until the end of the Cold War in 1991 . In some respects , including speed and reactor technology , Soviet submarines achieved unique successes , but for most of the era lagged their Western counterparts in overall capability . In addition to their relatively high speeds and great operating depths they were difficult Anti - submarine warfare ( ASW ) targets to destroy because of their multiple compartments , their large reserve buoyancy , and especially their double - hulled design . Their principal shortcomings were insufficient noise damping ( American boats were quieter ) and primitive sonar technology . Acoustics was a particularly interesting type of information that the Soviets sought about the West ' s submarine - production methods , and the long - active John Anthony Walker spy ring may have made a major contribution to their knowledge of such . The Soviet Navy possessed numerous purpose - built guided missile submarine s , such as the Oscar class , as well as many ballistic missile and attack submarines ; their Typhoon - class boats are the world ' s largest submarines . The Soviet attack - submarine force was , like the rest of the Navy , designed for interception of NATO convoys , but also targeted American aircraft - carrier battle group s . Over the years Soviet submarines suffered a number of accidents , most notably on several nuclear boats . The most famous incidents include the Yankee - class " K - 219 " , and the Mike - class " Komsomolets " , both lost to fire , and the far more menacing nuclear reactor leak on the Hotel - class K - 19 , narrowly averted by her captain . Inadequate nuclear safety , poor damage control , and quality - control issues during construction ( particularly on the earlier submarines ) were typical causes of accidents . On several occasions there were alleged collisions with American submarines . None of these , however , has been confirmed officially by the U . S . Navy . Transition . After the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War , the Soviet Navy , like other branches of Armed Forces , eventually lost some of its units to former Soviet Republics , and was left without funding .