Marshal Voroshilov was the fifth ship of her class of ten Project 1134A Berkut A (NATO reporting name Kresta II-class) cruisers, designed by Vasily Anikeyev during the Cold War.

[8] Marshal Voroshilov was armed with a total of four AK-725 57-millimetre (2.2 in) dual-purpose guns in two twin mountings (one on either side aft of the funnel), to protect against surface and aerial threats.

[13] Marshal Voroshilov was relocated to Baltiysk in preparation for its voyage to the Pacific Fleet at Vladivostok after the completion of sea trials in the Baltic during late 1973.

While passing through the English Channel, it was shadowed by Royal Navy ships and extensively photographed; the first time a Kresta II-class cruiser had been spotted in Western waters.

[14] During the voyage, it visited Port Louis, Mauritius with the tanker Grozny between 2 and 8 March 1974, then Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and Berbera, Somalia between 3 and 17 April.

[13] Following the ship's arrival in the Far East, it was assigned to the 201st Anti-Submarine Warfare Brigade of the fleet's 10th Operational Squadron on 11 June, based at Zolotoy Rog on the Sea of Japan.

During the winter of 1977–1978, the cruiser participated in a rescue operation for three Riga-class frigates of the Sakhalin Flotilla during severe storms in the northern Sea of Japan, which damaged the stern Shtorm launcher and forward Volga navigational radar.

Captain 3rd rank Vasily Floryak took command on 7 November after Ilyin was injured in a car accident in Maputo and evacuated by plane to the Soviet Union.

Between August 1988 and April 1989, she operated in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, temporarily based at Cam Ranh, Vietnam.

Khabarovsk was decommissioned on 29 October due to the deterioration of the ship and lack of funds for repair, and the hull was transferred to an underwater engineering detachment, intended to be sold for scrap.