Kommuna is a submarine rescue ship[1][2] in service with the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet and the world's oldest active duty naval vessel.

On 17 November 1913 the ship was launched under the name Volkhov, and was commissioned into the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy on 15 July 1915.

In mid-1928 Kommuna raised the British submarine HMS L55, which had been sunk in the Gulf of Finland in June 1919, from a depth of 62 metres (203 ft), and which then served as the prototype for the Leninets class.

Kommuna continued to serve as a salvage and repair ship, also raising a tug, a torpedo boat, and a crashed aircraft.

That year she also repaired six M-class submarines, as well as salvaging the Shchuka class 411, the tugboat Austra, the schooners Trud and Vodoley-2, and several other vessels.

[1] In 1967, the ship sailed from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and was refitted at a cost of 11 million rubles to carry submersibles.

Remaining under the auspices of the navy, a retired naval captain was assigned to the vessel, overseeing her restoration from April 1985.

[1] In October 2009 she received the British-built submarine rescue submersible Pantera Plus, capable of operating to depths of up to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft).

[1] In April 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ship was deployed after the sinking of the guided missile cruiser Moskva.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet had previously removed most of its warships from Sevastopol, out of the range of Ukrainian missiles, with Kommuna one of the few remaining.