However, before the ships began to be built, commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy Admiral Sergey Gorshkov changed the role of the ships to that of destroying NATO attack submarines to allow Soviet Yankee-class ballistic missile submarines to reach the central Atlantic and Pacific, from which the latter could launch their comparatively short-ranged ballistic missiles against targets in the United States.

[1][5] Admiral Isakov was propelled by two TV-12 steam geared turbines powered by four high-pressure boilers, which created 91,000 shp (68,000 kW), giving her a maximum speed of 34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph).

Built in the Zhdanov Shipyard at Leningrad with the serial number 722, the cruiser was laid down on 15 January 1968 and launched on 22 November of that year.

The flag of the Soviet Navy was hoisted for the first time about the ship on 16 August 1970, and Admiral Isakov was submitted for government testing in the Baltic on 9 September; the sea trials concluded uneventfully on 11 December.

Admiral Isakov shadowed a United States Navy carrier group in the Norwegian and Barents Seas between 11 August and 21 September.

After participating in Exercise Okean-75 in April 1975, she operated in the Central Atlantic and Mediterranean with the missile cruiser Admiral Zozulya between 1 June and 1 December, visiting Annaba from 31 July to 4 August.

[13] Between August and October 1976, Admiral Isakov escorted the aircraft cruiser Kiev during tests of the latter's main missile systems off Kolguyev Island.

[13] In difficult weather, Isakov sailed to the Lofoten Islands with the Kashin-class destroyer Smyshlyony and the oiler Genrikh Gasanov during the April 1977 Exercise Sever-77.

Between June 1977 and April 1980, she underwent repairs and modernization at the SRZ-35 shipyard in Murmansk, which included the addition of jet blast deflectors under the barrels of the V-611 missiles of the Shtorm system.

[14] After the completion of her refit, Admiral Isakov conducted combat training in the Barents and Norwegian Seas, near the Lofoten and Faroe Islands.

[15] Admiral Isakov once again cruised into the Atlantic and the Mediterranean between 27 July and 2 October 1982, beginning with anti-submarine Exercise Natyag in the Greenland Sea and passed Jan Mayen on 1 August.

[16] She escorted the aircraft cruiser Novorossiysk during the latter's voyage to the Pacific to the latitude of Gibraltar in October, with the destroyers Otchayanny, Udaloy, and the oiler Genrikh Gasanov.