From 1715, the English Royal Navy intervened in the Baltic Sea on behalf of the German principality of Hanover, (dynastic home of the current British monarchy) and more or less in a tacit alliance with Russia.

During the concluding stages of the war, the Russian fleet would land troops along the Swedish coast to devastate coastal settlements.

During the "Seven Years' War", (1756–1763), the Russian Baltic Sea fleet was active on the Pomeranian coast of northern Germany and Prussia, helping the infantry to take Memel in 1757 and Kolberg in 1761.

During the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790) the fleet, commanded by Samuel Greig and Vasily Chichagov, checked the Swedes at Hogland (1788), Reval, and the Viborg (1790).

At about the same time, Russian Admiral Ivan Krusenstern circumnavigated the globe, while another Baltic Fleet officer – Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen – discovered the southern ice-covered continent, Antarctica.

In the Crimean War, (1853–1856), the fleet – although stymied in its operations by the absence of steamships – prevented the British and French Allies from occupying Hangö, Sveaborg, and Saint Petersburg.

Despite being greatly outnumbered by the technologically superior Allies, it was the Russian Fleet that introduced into naval warfare such novelties as torpedo mines, invented by Boris Yakobi.

Other outstanding inventors who served in the Baltic Fleet were Alexander Stepanovich Popov (who was the first to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic (radio) waves[5]), Stepan Makarov (the first to launch torpedoes from a boat), Alexei Krylov (author of the modern ship floodability theory), and Alexander Mozhaiski (co-inventor of aircraft).

It was the policy of the Tsar and his government to show support for the Northern Union Army in the United States during their Civil War, observing and exchanging naval tactics and cooperation.

Furthermore, in the second half of the 19th and early 20th Century a strong network of coastal artillery batteries was created to cover the approaches to St. Petersburg, Riga, and other important bases.

By 1900, decades of modernization on the Baltic as well as the Pacific Fleet made Russia the fourth strongest country in the world in terms of naval forces after the UK, France and Germany, ahead of the US and Japan.

After the defeat of earlier Siberian Military Flotilla vessels, in September 1904, the Second Squadron under the command of Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky was sent on a high-speed dash[citation needed] around South Africa.

They stopped in French, German and Portuguese colonial ports: Tangier in Morocco, Dakar in Senegal, Gabon, Baía dos Tigres, Lüderitz Bay, and Nossi Be (Madagascar).

The Imperial German civilian passenger Hamburg-Amerika Line provided 60 colliers to supply the Baltic Fleet on its journey.

The decision to send the fleet to the Pacific was made after Russia had suffered a string of naval defeats in the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan off the coast of China and Korea near its Far East naval base and colony, at the hands of the newly emergent Imperial Japanese Navy and Army in Manchuria.

[7][8] Some of the fleet's 355-ton submarines were made by Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut in the United States, main supplier and builder of subs for the U.S. Navy.

The fleet played a limited role in the Winter War with Finland in 1939–1940, mostly through conducting artillery bombardments of Finnish coastal fortifications.

In the beginning of the German invasion the Baltic Fleet had 2 battleships (both of World War I vintage), 2 cruisers, 2 flotilla leaders, 19 destroyers, 48 MTBs, 65 submarines and other ships, and 656 aircraft.

During the war, the fleet, commanded by the Vice-Admiral Vladimir Tributz, defended the Hanko Peninsula, Tallinn, several islands in Estonian SSR, and participated in the breakthrough breach of the Siege of Leningrad.

For most of the war the fleet was trapped by German and Finnish minefields in Leningrad and nearby Kronstadt, the only bases left in Soviet hands on the Baltic coast.

They were particularly successful towards the end of the war, sinking ships like Wilhelm Gustloff, Steuben and Goya, causing great loss of life.

On June 1, 1960, as part of the reduction of the USSR Armed Forces, the management of the 8th mine-torpedo Gatchina Red Banner Aviation Division and both of its regiments were disbanded.

In October 1981, the Soviet Whiskey-class submarine U 137 ran aground in Swedish territorial waters, near the important naval base of Karlskrona, causing a serious diplomatic incident.

Swedish naval vessels pulled the submarine into deeper water and permitted it to return to the Soviet fleet in early November.

However, it is also the smallest of the Russian Navy's four principal fleets (in terms of surface warships and submarines combined) and therefore, due to its limited strength, would play primarily a defensive role in the Baltic Sea in most conflict or wartime scenarios.

[31] On Russia's "Navy Day" on July 31, 2022, President Putin reportedly indicated that the Baltic Fleet was to be prioritized for modernization in the coming years.

[32] Deployed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion in 2022, the Baltic Fleet's 11th Army Corps has suffered heavy losses according to Forbes.