Characters / World Of Warships Soviet Union

Warships attributed to the Imperial Russian Navy (Российский императорский флот) and the Soviet Navy (Военно-морской флот СССР) in World of Warships.

The Soviet Red Fleet is the third faction to be introduced with their first ship being the Tier III premium cruiser Aurora. Actual Russian research tree, in form of a Destroyer line, was added in October 2015, just a month after release of the game. Cruiser line was released in March 2016. Destroyer line was split in two in March 2017. Battleship line was added in May 2019. Cruiser line was split in May 2020. Aircraft Carrier line was released in September 2021.

Russian ships in general are good in most areas, having good artillery with excellent shell ballistics, large HP pools, high speed, thick armor and strong AA defences. Their cruisers have a Surveillance Radar with the longest detection range in the game, and Defensive AA Fire is a common consumable for both cruiser and universal destroyer lines. However, Russian ships are really big and, despite their good armor, has large citadels. They also has poor maneuverability, and their turrets turn slower than average. All that makes them easy targets on short distances, or if taken by surprise.

Researchable ships

Russian Submarines

Soviet submarines are designed to hunt other submarines. They are armed with fast torpedoes, that, however, suffer from long reload time and low damage. Their Submarine Surveillance reloads twice as fast as other nations', but lasts for a shorter time. These boats also have player-controlled guns, that fire SAP shells, and can finish off low-HP enemies.

• Hunter of His Own Kind: Their torpedoes are perfect for striking low-durability targets like other submarines, and their short-cooldown Submarine Surveillance helps in locating these targets. However, torpedoes' low damage means that they are far less effective against armored targets, like battleships.

S-1

Tier VI Russian Submarine. S-class, officially designated "Srednyaya"^note Medium[-sized], and nicknamed "Stalinets"^note follower of Stalin, was the most successful class of Soviet submarines in WWII. With 41 units built, S-class submarines served in all four fleets. Sixteen boats of this type were lost in the war; S-1 herself was destroyed by her crew to avoid capture.

L-20

Tier VIII Russian Submarine. L-class, designated "Leninets"^note follower of Lenin, was the second-ever series of Soviet submarines. The class was designed primarily as minelayers, but were used as attack submarines as well. The class was built in four batches (series II, XI, XIII, XIII-bis), with L-20 being the lead boat of the last series, fastest and most capable of them. 24 boats were built, with 25th being left unfinished. Six boats of this class were lost in WWII.

• Anachronic Order: Twofold. The first boat of the class, L-1, was commissioned before S-1 was even laid down, while L-20 herself was launched over a year after K-1.

K-1

Tier X Russian Submarine. K-class, officially designated "Kreyserskaya"^note Cruiser, as an adjective, were the most powerful submarines in the Soviet Navy duing WWII. Envisioned as "cruiser submarines", they were armed with two 100mm guns, and were known to engage submarine chasers in surface combat. 11 boats of the class were completed, and five of them were lost in the war.

Russian Destroyers - Torpedo Boats

Alternative line of Russian Destroyers branches out on Tier VIII. Compares to leaders, these ships are much more flexible and play closer to their American counterparts. While still having respectable artillery, they pack 10km torpedoes, Smoke Generator and Repair Party in separate slots, and Defensive AA Fire.

• Heal Thyself: All Soviet Destroyers has a self-healing equipment starting with tier VIII. Universal line can use it even without sacrifice the Smoke Generator.
• Theme Naming: Most of them are named with some "cool" adjective. Ognevoi - "Fiery", Udaloi - "Daring", Grozovoi - "Thunderous", and so on.

Ognevoi

Tier VIII (formerly Tier VI) Russian Destroyer of the universal line. Project 30 was a development of Project 7U, but only one ship was built by the initial project. The rest of the series (10 ships) was finished as Project 30-K. Further down the line, 70 more ships, by the project 30bis were built in 1949-1953, as a mean to quickly equalize numbers of the Soviet fleet with the new adversaries.

• Cherry Tapping: While she's good at this like other gunboat destroyers, she unfortunately on the receiving end a lot. Ognevoi only has its guns spread over two turrets, meaning a practical strategy to deal with is to simply repeatedly knock-out one turret and pump it with he while it can't retaliate.
• Take Up My Sword: The guns she starts with were salvaged, turrets and all, directly from the wreck of the Tashkent.
• Theme Naming: All Project 30/30-K/30bis destroyers were named with some "cool" adjectives. Project 30/30-K ships had names starting with letter "O", "V" and "J"^note cyrillic "О", "В" and "Ж". Project 30bis ships built for the Baltic Fleet had names starting with "S"^note cyrillic "С", Black Sea - "B"^note cyrillic "Б", Northern - "O"^note cyrillic "О", and Pacific - "V"^note cyrillic "В".
  • There also was a couple of Odd Name Out - Okhotnik^note "Hunter"(not the in-game one), later renamed to "Stalin", and Pylky, whose name started with "P" ^note cyrillic "П".

Udaloi

Tier IX Russian Destroyer of the universal line. Project 35 was the development of Ognevoi-class destroyers, outfitted with dual-purpose main battery. Planning was stopped due to the war, and design wasn't revisited later.

Grozovoi

Tier X Russian Destroyer of the universal line. Project 40 was a mid-war design, based on American and British destroyers. The class wasn't built due to Stalin's personal decision to build large number of cheaper ships, namely Project 30bis.

• Jack of All Stats: There isn't really anything to write hope about Grozovoi except her high AA and defensive fire, but her only real weakness is that torps have "only" 10km range and therefore are difficult to use against radar cruisers safety. The latter is hardly an uncommon weakness and Grozovoi can be specialized for a number of roles.
• Victory by Endurance: Subverted, unless you are the one fighting the Gozovoi. She boasts defensive fire and a heal in addition to the smoke and speed boost normal destroyers get, but only has one (max three) shot of each. This can leave Grozovois vulnerable much more early in the game than other destroyers.

Russian Destroyers - Leaders

Main line of Russian destroyers can be thought of as smaller cruisers, harassing targets from long range with their rapidly firing and high velocity shells while quickly moving about the map with their high speed. The turret traverse, size (and thus concealment), and torpedo armament of these destroyers leave much to be desired, however: This is not a ship that can go toe-to-toe with USN destroyers at close range and attempting to use any torps before Tier VIII requires charging to within 4 km of targets.

• Theme Naming: Most of them are named after major cities of USSR.
• Heal Thyself: All Soviet Destroyers has a self-healing equipment starting with tier VIII, but artillery line has to sacrifice the Smoke Generator to use it. However, due to ships' size, it's generally adviced to use Repair Party, lest the player wants to stay in the smoke screen and risk getting hit by a torpedo.

Storozhevoi

Tier II Russian Destroyer. The project of a '35-knot destroyer', developed in Russian Empire for mass production. Eventually, production was cancelled due to perceived lack of need for intermediate between already exicting classes.

Derzki

Tier III Russian Destroyer. She is the lead ship of the first series of Novik-class destroyers[[note:class in question named after the prototype ship, but Derzki was the first ship in the series proper]], built before WWI for the Russian Imperial Navy.

• Macross Missile Massacre: Her torpedoes. She carries five' sets of two tubes each, giving her a broadside of ten torpedoes (more than any other ship in the game at her tier) and unlike most of the other destroyers she can fire them all from a side salvo (all her tubes are centerline).

Izyaslav

Tier IV Russian Destroyer. Izyaslav class is the fourth series of Novik-class destroyers, distinguished by their different armament and slightly larger dimensions.

• Macross Missile Massacre: Only loses one torpedo launched per full salvo from the preceding Derzki… and can still fire them all to either broadside.

Podvoisky

Tier V Russian Destroyer. Project of a 'Destroyer for the Black Sea' was one of the first purely Soviet warship designs, developed in 1927-1929. While no ships were built, this design eventually became the basis for Project 1, or Leningrad-class destroyer leaders.

• Named After Someone Famous: Nikolai Podvoisky, an important Bolshevik revolutionary.

Gnevny

Tier VI (formerly Tier V) Russian Destroyer. Project 7 was developed in 1932-1934, using Italian Maestrale-class destroyers as a basis. 29 ships were built, and 18 more was finished as Storozhevoy class, or Project 7U.

• Theme Naming: All Project 7/7U destroyers were named with some "cool" adjectives. Project 7 ships built for Black Sea Fleet had names starting with letter "B" ^note cyrillic "Б", Pacific Fleet - letter "R" ^note cyrillic "Р", and Baltic Fleet - "G" and "S" ^note cyrillic "Г" and "С". Project 7U destroyers all had names starting with "S".

Minsk

Tier VII Russian Destroyer. Project 38 was a development, or more like a second series of Leningrad-class leaders. Three ships were built, and all of them survived the war.

Kiev

Tier VIII (formerly Tier VII) Russian Destroyer of the artillery line. Project 48 was a development of Tashkent-class, with similar armament, but smaller size. Only three ships were laid down, and only two of them were launched before the war. After the war it was considered to finish them as Project 48-K, but this proposal was declined in favor of building more modern ships.

• Anachronic Order: Kiev is the development of Tashkent, and yet she's a tier lower than her predecessor.

Tashkent

Tier IX (formerly Tier VIII) Russian Destroyer of the artillery line. Project 20I was a destroyer leader, built in Italy for the Soviet navy. Three more ships were considered to be built in USSR, but the order was cancelled.

Delny

Tier X Russian Destroyer of the artillery line. She's an another project of an improved Tashkent-class leader, this time with an armor belt. Delny was introduced in early 2022 as a replacement for Khabarovsk, that became a coal premium.

• Odd Name Out: She has a name fit for a destroyer, not for a leader.

Zorkiy

Russian Super-Destroyer of the artillery line. She's a project from early 1950s, resembling Khabarovsk.

• Irony: Khabarovsk was removed from the line because her gameplay was considered to be too different from the rest of the line, with the most attention given to her short-range torpedoes. A couple of months forward, and Zorkiy is introduced as a super-ship of the line, with her 8 km torpedoes against Delny's 10.
• More Dakka: Her alternative firing mode allows her to shoot four salvos with negligible reload time and improved HE penetration, but undergoes a long reload after that.
• Odd Name Out: Like Delny before her, she has a destroyer-like name.

Russian Cruisers - Light Cruisers

Russian Light Cruisers are dedicated snipers: With high range and excellent shell velocity, even the lower-caliber guns used until Tier IX can pummel targets and set fires. It's fast in a straight line but has poor turning, and combined with poor armor and concealment means that being out of position can be very punishing. Much like the destroyers, the torpedo armament is laughable with minimal range or slow speed and medium range.

• Enemy-Detecting Radar: Starting with Tier VIII all Soviet Cruisers has a Surveillance Radar. It works for comparatively short time, but has the longest distance in the game.

Orlan

Tier I Russian Cruiser

• Starter Equipment: First USSR ship available for free at the start of the game.

Novik

Tier II Russian Cruiser

Bogatyr

Tier III Russian Cruiser

• Glass Cannon: She's very similar to St. Louis in guns and speed, but has catastrophically bad armor.
• More Dakka: Upgrading from the stock 152mm guns to 130mm ones gives Bogatyr 16 main guns (10 to a broadside) instead of 12 (8 to a broadside), along with better accuracy.

Svietlana

Tier IV Russian Cruiser

Kotovsky

Tier V Russian Cruiser. She's a recreaction of so-called "specification №161738", a light cruiser proposal from 1933.

• Named After Someone Famous: Grigory Kotovsky, a Bolshevik revolutionary.

Budyonny

Tier VI Russian Cruiser. Project 94 was an evolution of project 26bis (slightly improved Kirov class), developed before the war. Cruisers of this project were meant to support destroyers. However, due to the start of war, it was abandoned.

• Long-Range Fighter: Both she and Shchors can use the spotter plane to stay away and snipe from long range.
• Named After Someone Famous: Semyon Budyonny, an important military leader during the Russian Civil War and early Great Patriotic War, and one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union

Shchors

Tier VII Russian Cruiser. Project 28 was another, earlier evolution of project 26bis. However, in 1937 it was decided to build cruisers of project 68 (Chapayev-class), and project 28 was abandoned.

• Named After Someone Famous: Nikolay Shchors, a Red Army commander during the Russian Civil War.

Chapayev

Tier VIII Russian Cruiser of the Light Cruiser line. She's one of the few Russian high-tier ships that existed in real life. Seven of them were laid down before the war, and ten more were planned. In the end, five surviving ships were completed after the war, by an improved project 68-K. Further down the line, 14 more ships, by the project 68bis were built in 1948-1959, as a mean to quickly equalize numbers of the Soviet fleet with the new adversaries.

• Lethal Joke Character: Some of the worst functional durability of cruiser, with an extremely vulnerable citadel to battleship rounds. However her radar is longer ranged than her minimum detection radius, meaning its possible to spot enemies while remaining completely undetected with a little luck.
• Named After Someone Famous: Vasily Chapayev, a Red Army hero of the Russian Civil War, who was featured in a hugely popular 1934 biopic.

Dmitri Donskoi

Tier IX Russian Cruiser of the Light Cruiser line. Project 65 was a post-war evolution of Chapayev class. Over 40 variations of the project were proposed, but in the end all works were halted after more Sverdlovs were ordered.

• Composite Character: The in-game ship is an amalgamation of 40+ designs proposed between 1945 and 1951. Specifically, the 12 guns design, recreated in the game, had its 152mm guns replaced with 180mm.
• Named After Someone Famous: Dmitri Donskoy, medieval Grand Prince of Moscow, who fought the Golden Horde in the battle of Kulikovo.
• Power Up Letdown: She trades 152mm guns for 180mm, but they have far longer reload time, and her DPM actually drops from this upgrade. To make matters worse, her HE shells doesn't get any pententration boosts compared to Chapayev. It means that she can't pententrate bow or stern of Tier VIII+ battleships without a perk that halves her fire-setting capability, and she, being Tier IX, encounters them far more often than her predecessor. Even worse, even with said perk her HEs can't pen midsection of US battleships.

Alexander Nevsky

Tier X Russian Cruiser of the Light Cruiser line. Project 84 was a very late (1954-1959) design of an AA cruiser. After admiral Kuznetsov, the project's backer, fell out of favor, it was abandoned. Alexander Nevsky was introduced after Soviet Cruiser line split to replace Moskva, which became a coal premium.

• Named After Someone Famous: Alexander Nevsky, one of the key figures in medieval Rus', who is best known for his victory in Battle on the Ice.

Russian Cruisers - Heavy Cruisers

Russian Heavy Cruisers branch out of the main line on Tier VIII. They best work at middle range, using their heavier 220mm guns with lower chance of ricochet to a defastating effect.

• Enemy-Detecting Radar: Just like their light counterparts, they mount long-distance Surveillance Radar, but it has even shorter work time.

Tallinn

Tier VIII Russian Cruiser of the Heavy Cruiser line. Project 83K was a plan to outfit an incomplete Admiral Hipper hull, bought from the Germans, with Soviet armament. Equipped with 12 180mm guns, she's the first of the Soviet heavy cruisers.

• Alternate History: In real life, she was put into commission essentially unfinished, with only two turrets with original German guns, and almost no AA. Here, her project 83K refit was actually completed.
• Composite Character: She has torpedo tubes, something that was considered only in project 83 (no K), that proposed to leave German guns in place.
• One-Steve Limit: In 1940-1944 she was called Petropavlovsk, and was named Tallinn only in 1944-1953. During most of the latter period she wasn't even in comission. But we already have another Petropavlovsk later down the line.

Riga

Tier IX Russian Cruiser of the Heavy Cruiser line. She is a prelimiary version of project 82, that was developed in 1941-1947. Unlike most heavy cruisers, she's armed with 220mm guns, unlike the usual 203mm.

Petropavlovsk

Tier X Russian Cruiser of the Heavy Cruiser line. Another version of project 82. The last heavy cruiser in the Soviet line, Petropavlovsk has 9 220mm guns and armor closer to Stalingrad's than Moskva's.

Russian Battleships - Battlecruisers

Russian battlecruisers, much like their German and British counterparts, consist of WWI-era proposals, fast and heavily armed, but lightly armored and lacking in AA.

• Named After Somebody Famous: All of them are named after famous Russian admirals of the XIX century.

Admiral Senyavin

Tier VII Russian Battleship of the battlecruiser line. In 1921-1922 there was a proposal to finish Kinburn, an Ismail-class battlecruiser, in an upgraded configuration, with better armor and replacement of triple 356mm turrets with new twin 406mm guns. However, poor state of Soviet industry at the time led to the ships being scrapped instead.

• Anachronic Order: This proposal is actually newer than higher-tier ships. This is a result of being a modernisation of an even older ship, and not a new development.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Dmitry Senyavin, famous for his victories in the Russo-Turkish war of 1806-1812.

Admiral Istomin

Tier VIII Russian Battleship of the battlecruiser line. In 1914, Putilov Plant developed a series of battlecruiser projects, loosely based on German warships of the time, such as Bayern-class. Project №4 had three triple 406mm turrets, with overall layout similar to Ismail-class, in so-called "Russian scheme".

• Named After Somebody Famous: Vladimir Istomin, a Battle of Sinop and Siege of Sevastopol participant.

Admiral Kornilov

Tier IX Russian Battleship of the battlecruiser line. Another product of the 1914 R&D, Project №9 carried three quadriple 406mm turrets, also arranged into Russian scheme.

• Named After Somebody Famous: Vladimir Kornilov, another Battle of Sinop and Siege of Sevastopol participant.

Admiral Lazarev

Tier X Russian Battleship of the battlecruiser line. The end result of Putilov Plant R&D, "Battleship of 1915" had the same armament as earlier Project №9, but arranged into more efficient linear-elevated scheme. Eight ships were meant to be built, but none were even laid down.

• Named After Somebody Famous: Mikhail Lazarev, discoverer of Antarctica, participant of Battle of Navarino, and The Mentor for the aforementioned Kornilov and Istomin.

Russian Battleships - Fast Battleships

• Damage Control: Their damage control works very differently to other ships- Russian battleship damage control reloads much quicker (commonly in <60s compared to the >60s of other nations) but they only have limited charges, which means one can get in trouble by careless management of the consumable.

Knyaz Suvorov

Tier III Russian Battleship

Gangut

Tier IV Russian Battleship

Pyotr Velikiy

Tier V Russian Battleship

• Named After Somebody Famous: Peter The Great.

Izmail

Tier VI Russian Battleship

Sinop

Tier VII Russian Battleship of the fast battleship line.

Vladivostok

Tier VIII Russian Battleship of the fast battleship line.

Sovetsky Soyuz (Soviet Union)

Tier IX Russian Battleship of the fast battleship line.. Sovetsky Soyuz was the name of the lead ship of the project 23 battleship series. Before the WWII Stalin wanted to build 15 of them, before settling on "only" four. None on them were ever finished, but some of their armament, including a sole 406mm main caliber gun, was used in the Siege of Leningrad.

• Patriotic Fervor: Named after the nation itself, it's hard to find a ship that exemplifies a more Soviet name.

Kremlin

Tier X Russian Battleship of the fast battleship line.. A project 24 ship, that was in works after the war. It essentialy was meant to be an upgraged project 23. After Stalin's death all works were stopped.

• Artistic License – Engineering: The Kremlin is so low in the water that it'd probably sink in a mild sea, but since that doesn't matter in-game, all it means is that the ship's hitbox is significantly smaller than the similar Großer Kurfürst or Vermont, and it's physically incapable of fitting the 18-inch guns that the in-game version wields.. the original was meant to be armed with 9 16-inch guns. Said guns also rotate unrealistically fast.
• Made of Iron: Absurdly difficult to burn down due to her unique damage control, dethrones Großer Kurfürst as the ship with the highest HP in the game, as well as being rather tricky when bow-tanking or angling due to her armor scheme, Kremlin's durability is her most notable trait.
• Meaningful Name: Yes, she's named after the Moscow Kremlin, but in fact "Kremlin" is a type of fortress, specific to Russia. An apt description with her absurd bow-tanking capabilities.

Russian Aircraft Carriers

Soviet Aircraft Carriers are unique in two regards. Firstly, theis squads drop all of their load at once, resulting in a large alpha damage. Secondly, instead of dive bombers, they use skip bombers, whose bombs can make several skips on water before hitting the target or drowning. As a trage-off, their planes are quite fragile.

Komsomolets

Tier IV Russian Aircraft Carrier. Komsomolets is a proposed refit for the training ship of the same name (formerly "Okean/Ocean").

• Alternate History: In reality, proposed refit included an island and an impressive battery of eight dual 102mm mounts. In the game, while she's still based on a real ship, the refit is much less extensive, and more evocative of other early carriers, that can be seen on the fourth tier.

Serov

Tier VI Russian Aircraft Carrier. Serov is a recreation of project 71, a proposal of a light carrier, based of Chapayev-class cruisers. She was meant to be laid down in 1940 or 1941, but impending war put an end to these plans.

Pobeda

Tier VIII Russian Aircraft Carrier. Project 69, on which this ship is based, was a 1939 proposal to convert Kronshtadt-class supercruisers into carriers.

• Nitro Boost: She and Nakhimov has rocket boosters that grant their planes an enormous speed for a short time after takeoff.

Admiral Nakhimov

Tier X Russian Aircraft Carrier.

• Glass Cannon: The only Tier X carrier to lack an armored deck, which makes her extremly vulnerable to HE shells and bombs. It also applies to her planes, that may be picked off even by a destroyer. However, a smart player will hide the carrier close enough to enemies to take advantage of their planes' Nitro Boost and shred any ship without Defensive AA Fire сonsumable.
• More Dakka: Has six quadriple 130mm guns, the very same that can be seen on Smolensk.
• Named After Someone Famous: Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov, a famous admiral.

Premium ships

Russian Premium Destroyers

Gremyashchy

Tier V Premium Russian Destroyer

• Bribing Your Way to Victory: An incredibly powerful gunboat, but unlike her Soviet counterparts she actually has usable torpedoes as well. At the time she was originally sold, Gremyashchy was considered powerful but relatively balanced, sitting midway between the Tier 5 American and Japanese destroyers (the former a powerful gunboat with terrible torpedoes, the latter a powerful torpedo boat with terrible guns). But those ships, and destroyers in general, have since been nerfed and Gremyashchy never was. And until stealth-firing of guns was removed entirely from the game, Gremyashchy could do it with a fairly comfortable margin, whereas other Soviet destroyers had a detection bloom penalty to prevent them from doing so. To wit, the Anshan, a Pan-Asian version of the ship, is a tier higher and does just fine. Wargaming has acknowledged this and refuses selling the ship (joining the likes of the Kamikaze sisters, Imperator Nikolai I and Konig Albert) again, meaning live events, event-exclusive containers or supercontainers are the only way of getting this ship.

Okhotnik

• Macross Missile Massacre & More Dakka: You think Derzki has it nuts? Okhotnik has 12 torpedo tubes and 7 guns! Oh, and unlike other destroyers with lots of torpedoes, such as the Clemson, she can actually fire all of these at one target.
• Military Mashup Machine: The concealment of a destroyer, the length and firepower of a cruiser, and the turning radius of a battleship.
• Overly Long Gag: A visual, literal example. Jokes were made about it's length and resulting hilarious appearance.

Leningrad

• Jack of All Stats: Borders on Master of All. Leningrad boasts five powerful guns backed up by an array of very good torpedoes mounted on one of the fastest ships in the game. Really only her wonky turret arrangement and sluggish turret traverse keeps her from being considered a game breaker.^note Two out of her three rear turrets can't fire directly backward meaning she will have to rely purely on speed if chased

Khabarovsk

Tier X Premium Russian Destroyer of the artillery line. Project 24 was a proposal of an armored destroyer leader, developed in 1935. Due to reorientation of Soviet industry to cruisers and battleships, no ships were built. Later, studies for this type became a basis for Project 47, and, eventually, Project 41. She used to be a researchable ship, but in early 2022 was turned into a coal pemium, with Delny taking her place.

• Unexpected Gameplay Change: She was replaced as a mean to cure this. Unlike Tashkent, Khabarovsk has a fourth turret, but also has worse maneurability and sort torpedo range. Delny, meanwhile, plays more like Tashkent with some armor.

Russian Premium Cruisers

Aurora

Tier III Russian Premium Cruiser. A pre-WWI protected cruiser, best known for firing some of the opening shots of the October Revolution. She's currently preserved as a museum ship literally just outside the window of Wargaming's Saint Petersburg studio. Aurora has thus become something of a mascot ship to the game, being the premium ship most commonly given out for free to players.

Murmansk

The Omaha-class light cruiser USS Milwaukee, upgraded and loaned to the Soviets as Lend-Lease aid.

• Bribing Your Way to Victory: She's an Omaha Class light cruiser with superior AP penetration (51% better), though the same damage, slightly better concealment and much better torpedoes than the tech tree variant.

Kirov

Used to be the Tier 5 Russian cruiser, was made a premium available for doubloons after the line split.

• Glass Cannon: She's very thinly armored, with a large citadel that sits high out of the water. She also gets massive-for-tier 180mm guns.
• Fragile Speedster: Reaches 35 knots, which is lower-end speed for destroyers.
• Long-Range Fighter: With her excellent ballistics and fast speed, it is easy for her to stay back and kite. Which is good, because her abysmal armor, clumsy handling and painfully short-ranged torpedoes makes her vulnerable up close.

Krasny Krym

The tier 4 Soviet cruiser Svietlana, bumped up a tier with minor buffs.

• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Inverted. She's basically the Svietlana pushed up a tier with little in the way to compensate.

Molotov

An improved version (Project 26bis) of the Kirov (Project 26) at Tier 5, she is an up-tiered Kirov given better guns.

• Fragile Speedster: She was was the fastest cruiser for a good while. She also has some of the worst armor at her tier.
• Glass Cannon: A slightly improved Kirov with only minuscule increase in armor, moved up from Tier V to Tier VI. This is compensated for by having even better versions of the 180mm gun. The same version as the Tier IX Dmitri Donskoi, in fact.
• Long-Range Fighter: In the same vein as her tier 5 half-sister.

Lazo

• The Battlestar: Lazo has a unique trait that allows her to reload her spotter aircraft consumable in ten seconds with the premium consumable. For comparison, her tech tree counterpart takes 240s to do the same. This gives Lazo a functionally enormous range and makes it easy for her to use islands to her advantage.
• Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: Long range guy compared to Shchors. Not only does she have a slight edge in base range, but with her spotting plane gimmick she can maintain a spotting range of 20.7 km and actually hit targets at that distance for about eight minutes total. On the downside her torpedo armament is reduced making her rather vulnerable in a knife fight unlike Shchors.

Mikhail Kutuzov

Soviet tier 8 premium cruiser. Currently preserved as a museum ship.

• Anti-Air: The strongest AA defenses among cruisers of its tier.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: is pretty much better in every way than her tech tree counterpart in every way, sometimes significantly so. She can't mount radar, but does get a smoke screen that can allow her to farm a lot damage. She has since been removed from sale.
• Reused Character Design: has one in the form of the Pan-Asian cruiser Irian. Not only are they the same class with the same premium camo, they are the exact same model. In fact you can still make Mikhial Kutuzov's name on the Irian. This is different from normal sister ships which normally have new models built from scratch, as evidenced by the far greater detail on newer ships.

Kronshtadt

The tier IX Russian Free XP-researched premium cruiser, and the first Free XP researched premium cruiser in the game. Kronshtadt was a cruiser killer (also known as a large cruiser or supercruiser) design. The concept is essentially a revival of the battlecruiser concept only with relatively smaller but rapid firing sets of guns, making it idea for killing fleets of cruisers. While Kronshtadt and her sister Sevastapol were laid down, Kronshtadt herself was cannibalized during the siege of Leningrad and Sevastapol was canceled after the war in favor of building a new cruiser killer design made with lessons learned from the war.

• Achilles' Heel: Not just a traditional one in the form of weak points in her armor; Kronshtadt is extraordinarily vulnerable to planes due to her pathetic AA defense. While she has Defensive Fire that can scatter bomb/torpedo drops, determined carrier captains can eventually sink her with litte loss.
• Attack Its Weak Point: When broadside, Konshtadt is extraordinarily susceptible to battleship rounds in a rather large area forward and rearward of the turrets. This is because the horizontal citadel armor is thinner here allowing any BB (and other cruiser killers) to over match it and score citadel penetrations.
• Badass on Paper: Downplayed. While Kronshtadt is still a good ship, it is nowhere near as scarily good as it appears. While she combines the strengths of both battleships and cruisers, she also combines many of their weaknesses. For example she is still quite vulnerable to destroyers and carriers like a traditional battleship, and being caught in open water is a death sentence. While it looks like a rapid fire battleship disguised as a cruiser, you will die quickly if you play it as one.
• BFG 305 mm (12 inch) guns on a cruiser, comparable to early tier battleships. It's also interesting to note that she finally displaces Admiral Graf Spee for the biggest guns mounted on a cruiser.
• Lightning Bruiser / Fragile Speedster: By cruiser standards. She's still above average in terms of speed but also boasts murderous guns and insane durability. In the eyes of battleships, which whom she arguably shares more in common with than cruisers, she is still quick and has a good DPM but her armor is rather vulnerable when at range or broadside and can still be over matched through the bow and stern.
• Military Mashup Machine: She's a large cruiser, something of a midway point between a heavy cruiser and fast battleship. Even among other cruiser killer designs, Kroshtadt seems to have trouble making up her mind, as she would have been armored enough to be considered a proper battlecruiser.
• Point Defenseless: She has acceptable secondaries for what she is but her AA is bad for a cruiser of her tier (or even for two tiers lower) even if you don't factor in her huge size. Using the Defensive AA Fire consumable instead of Spotting Aircraft is basically mandatory just to panic incoming torpedo bombers, but even with it active carriers certainly won't fear sending their planes near her.
• Jack of All Stats: Not among cruisers, which she is very specialized, but among other ships in general. Kronshtadt has a credible anti destroyer game (thanks to good he and radar), a good anti battleship game(which both punishing he and ap and better dpm than BBs), and is built to fight other cruisers (but most BBs are still better in this department). There are better ships in all these roles, but its hard to find one that can adapt as well as Kronshdadt.

Moskva

• BFG: At one point boasted the biggest guns of any cruiser until surpassed by Graf Spee. She has since been dethroned at her tier by French Henri IV with Henri's 9.5inch guns.
• Military Mashup Machine: The armor and speed of a cruiser, the health and (lack of) concealment of a battleship, and guns that are about halfway between. Not so much a heavy cruiser as a light battlecruiser.

Stalingrad

A supercruiser project developed after the war, with 305mm guns and heavy armor.

• In Name Only: Stalingrad is in-game classified as a cruiser. Yet her stats are anything but close to cruisers- they are more in line with battleships.

Smolensk

Developed after World War II, a project of a small light cruiser (MLK 16 x 130) equipped with sixteen dual-purpose guns in four turret mounts intended to counter enemy light ships. A Tier X cruiser, obtainable for coal in the Armory.

• More Dakka: Has 16 (4x4) 130mm guns that can quickly make mincemeat out of unlucky lightly-armored targets or cause Death of a Thousand Cuts to anything else, especially if the IFHE skill is taken.
• Stealth Expert: While its concealment is on the below average side for a light cruiser, it falls under this trope for similar reasons as Hakuryu's torpedo bombers and the bug that concealed their torpedoes' arming status (before it was fixed, that is). The ship's sheer rate and volume of fire causes the game to be unable to consistently render the start points of each projectile, which means that in some cases the shells won't start being rendered until at least 2 or 3 seconds after they've left the gun. This is an issue when facing an enemy Smolensk that firing as fast as it can while concealed in smoke, where the inconsistent rendering start points for their shells make it nigh-impossible to pinpoint their location in the smokescreen.

Russian Premium Battleships

Imperator Nikolai I

• Achilles' Heel: For all of her infamous "overpowered" reputation in the community, she has abysmal AA and poor torpedo protection, rendering her vulnerable to concentrated aircraft/destroyer attacks.
• Badass on Paper: Inverted. On paper, she doesn't appear as crazy: Glacial turret rotation times, below-average reload time, thin main belt armor and no AA to speak of. However, she has almost no super structure for cruisers/destroyers to hit, and three out of four gun turrets can cross the center line of the ship on the forward arc, meaning that the bad turret traverse rarely matters. This also means she has to expose very little of her citadel to fire those 3/4 of her guns. Combined with strong bow armor ^note (the belt runs the full length of the ship, tapering to 100mm at the bow...which when angled is sufficient to bounce every shell in the game) , she's very difficult to meaningfully damage. The developers and supertesters alike largely overlooked how significant those strengths would be, which is how Nikolai made it into the game in such a state.
• More Dakka: She gets a very accurate 12 gun broadside, meaning she's quite capable of deleting other ships at her tier and above.

Oktyabryskaya Revolyutsiya (October Revolution)

• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Much less so than the Nikolai. She retains some of the Nikolai's positive aspects but is a tier higher and will thus face much more difficult opponents on a regular basis.
• Damage Control: Her most unique trait is her option to mount a quick reloading damage control that comes at the cost of only having a limited number of uses.
• Patriotic Fervor: Named after the event that kick-started a civil war that eventually formed the Soviet Union, as well as having a Soviet-themed camo scheme.
• Schizo Tech: She already had an antiquated look when she was built. Unfortunately, the USSR battleship/battlecruiser program never got really far, leaving them no choice but to continuously update what were already built, including the Oktyabryskaya Revolutsiya. The result is a ship best described as an ancient hull (1900s era hull, main guns, and secondary guns) married to a modern-looking superstructure supporting the latest AA and fire control systems.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Has an unlockable camo scheme themed after the Russian Revolution.

Lenin

• Crippling Overspecialization: An interesting variant- Lenin is very good at bow-tanking (able to bounce Yamato and Musashi rounds at the water line!) but probably the worst stern-tanker/kiter in the game. While other ships have all the guns on the bow, they at least have their secondaries positioned in a way to try and compensate and most of them have good speed or other durability gimmicks. Lenin, however, also has her secondaries optimized for forward fire and isn't the fastest BB at her tier. Combined with the ubiquitous Russian BB vulnerability when broadside, its often simply impossible to run away in a Lenin and she well be abused as she makes her escape.
• Named After Someone Famous: Vladimir Lenin.