On 3 August 2012, international media reported that three vessels of the class, Aleksandr Otrakovskiy, Georgiy Pobedonosets and Kondopoga, would visit the Russian naval base in Tartus, Syria.

Earlier reports, quoting an anonymous source at the Russian general staff, said the ships would spend a few days in Tartus and take on fresh supplies of food and water.

[3][4] From 2013 on, ten Ropucha-class ships, gathered from all four Russian fleets, were used to transport military equipment from Novorosiysk to Tartus, during an intervention in the Syrian civil war.

[5] All four ships of the Russia's Black Sea Fleet, namely Tsezar Kunikov, Novocherkassk, Yamal and Azov, were modernized with installation of the Tsentavr-NM2S, Auriga and Cobham SAILOR satellite phones.

[7] In February 2022, prior to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the landing ships Korolev, Minsk, Kaliningrad, Pyotr Morgunov (Project 11711), Georgy Pobedonosets, and Olenegorsky Gornyak from the Baltic and Northern fleets departed their bases and passed through the Dardanelles Strait for claimed exercises in the Black Sea.

[17][18] In early August 2023, Olenegorsky Gornyak was seriously damaged at the Black Sea Novorossiysk naval base after it was struck by a Ukrainian maritime drone carrying 450 kilograms (990 lb) of TNT.

[20][21] On 13 September 2023, Russian military reported that the Sevastopol Shipyard had been struck by a Ukrainian missile attack, damaging Minsk and the Kilo-class submarine Rostov-on-Don.

[29][30] The recent satellite images did not reveal any damage, showing that the missile hit the pier next to the ship presumably due to the electronic warfare system.