Vladimirsky served aboard the Black and Azov seas ships as a navigator, watch chief, artilleryman, and senior deputy commander of a destroyer.

Early in 1938, he served on the French transport Bonifacio to supply arms and ammunition to the Spanish communists in the last stages of the Spanish Civil War, and later in 1938 Vladimirsky headed a detachment of hydrographic vessels, which accomplished a passage from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

After being the officer accepting delivery of the first Tashkent class destroyer, from June 1939, Vladimirsky was commanding a squadron of the Black Sea Fleet, which from the beginning of the Second World War participated in the fighting during the defense of Odesa and Sevastopol.

In September 1941, he led an amphibious landing in the Grigorevki region.

From May 1943, Vladimirsky commanded the Black Sea Fleet, leading naval forces in the Novorossiysk (1943) and Kerch-Eltigen (1943) landing operations.