In 1937, the Committee for Defense authorized the commencement of design work for a new destroyer that incorporated the wartime experience gained during the Spanish Civil War. Prior to the German invasion, only five Project 30 destroyers had been launched. Ognevoi, the lead ship, was laid down in Mykolaiv in 1939 and launched in November 1940. When World War II came to the Soviet Union, the hull of the unfinished destroyer was towed to Sevastopol and then to Batumi. Commissioned in 1945, Ognevoi joined the Black Sea Fleet.