The lead Kresta I accumulated more than fifteen thousand nautical miles during trials before joining the Northern Fleet's missile-ship organization. It exercised with Egyptian forces, crossed the Atlantic, deployed with Admiral Gorshkov, and lost a crew member in a Ka-25 accident. The discussion also flags a translation problem: Polmar renders the Soviet RKR classification as "missile cruiser," where a literal English version can appear as "large rocket ship." Later assignments included monitoring NATO's Northern Wedding exercise and participating in the Soviet Atlantika 84 exercise. The operating record shows that the class was used for distant exercises, alliance activity, surveillance, and fleet presence rather than kept as a missile showpiece close to home. Its transfer and modernization around the Soviet collapse, followed quickly by decommissioning, underline both the ship's sustained use and the difficulty of keeping an aging cruiser economical.
Notable Point · 26:01-31:22
Admiral Zozoulia's long working career
Admiral Zozoulia's exercises, Mediterranean deployments, NATO surveillance, repairs, and late modernization show how heavily the Kresta I cruisers were worked.