The destroyer served in the Black Sea during the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) in June 1941 and covered the evacuation of the Danube Flotilla to Odessa the following month.

Levkas carried enough fuel oil to give her a range of 2,130 nautical miles (3,940 km; 2,450 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph).

[6] After being added to the Black Sea Fleet ship list on 2 July 1915, Levkas was laid down in the Russud Shipyard in Nikolayev on 23 May 1916 and launched on 10 October 1917.

Construction halted after the Russian Revolution and on 17 March 1918 the shipyard was captured by German troops, followed by the Ukrainian People's Army and the White Armed Forces of South Russia.

Renamed Shaumyan on 5 February 1925 in honor of the martyred Armenian Bolshevik Stepan Shaumian, the contract for her completion was signed on 13 August.

Ready for trials by 19 October 1925, she entered service with the Black Sea Naval Forces on 10 December of that year when the navy officially accepted her.

[9] With cruiser Krasny Kavkaz and Petrovsky, the destroyer made another Mediterranean cruise in late 1933, departing Sevastopol on 17 October.

Together with the light cruisers Chervona Ukraina and Komintern, and the destroyers Besposhchadny and Boyky, Shaumyan and her sister Nezamozhnik bombarded Axis positions west of Odessa on 1–2 September.

[14][16] After the evacuation of Odessa, Shaumyan supported the defense of Sevastopol from 29 October when she and Nezamozhnik were assigned to another naval bombardment group, this time with the light cruisers Krasnyi Krym and Chervona Ukraina and the destroyer Bodry.

This was not her only task as the ship helped to evacuate cut-off Soviet troops from pockets along the Black Sea coast to Sevastopol from 1 to 9 November.

[17] The destroyer supported the Kerch-Feodosia amphibious operation on 29 December where her mainmast was struck by a shell that killed two men and wounded seven others.

[18] On 3 April she ran aground and punctured her hull in the area of Gelendzhik while steaming from Novorossiysk to Poti after being attacked by German aircraft.

The destroyer was officially struck from the Navy List on 3 June after she was disarmed as she could not fire from her position; her 102 mm guns formed a coastal defense battery defending the Novorossiysk Naval Base.