She was designed and built by the British shipbuilder Yarrows from 1894 to 1895 and was claimed to be the fastest warship in the world during her sea trials.

[3][a] Thirty-one more destroyers of similar design (twenty-six more Sokols, also known as the Puilki-class and five Tverdi-class destroyers, differing only in mounting larger torpedoes) were built in Russian yards from 1896 to 1908, although they did not manage to match the performance of Sokol.

[5][4] Pruitki was obsolete and unsuitable for front-line combat use by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914,[14] and in 1915 was fitted for minesweeping.

[15][7] Pruitki's crew sided with the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution, joining the Red Fleet.

The advance of the Germans and White Finns soon threatened the port of Helsingfors (now Helsinki), where the Baltic Fleet was based.

[17][7][16] In August 1918, as the Russian Civil War progressed, Pruitki, together with her remaining sister ships in the Baltic Fleet,[18] was transferred from Petrograd to the River Volga via the Mariinsk Canal System, reaching Nizhny Novgorod on 24 August.