Engaging a German convoy without result on 21 August, she was damaged by a mine during the evacuation of Tallinn, Estonia, but limped back to Leningrad for repairs that lasted for most of September.

Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Project 7Us varied from 1,380 to 2,700 nautical miles (2,560 to 5,000 km; 1,590 to 3,110 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph), that upper figure demonstrated by Storozhevoy.

Renamed Surovy on 25 September 1940,[6] the ship was accepted by a state commission on 31 May 1941 and joined the 5th Destroyer Division of the Baltic Fleet on 18 June when the Soviet naval jack was raised aboard her.

She participated in minelaying operations in the Gulf of Finland on 29 June, and bombarded German positions in support of the 8th Army on the coast of Narva Bay on 23 July.

[8] During August, Surovy and her sister ship Statny made two raids in the Gulf of Riga; the former under the flag of Light Forces Detachment commander Counter Admiral Valentin Drozd.

Surovy fired one hundred forty-five 130 mm shells at one of the transports and erroneously reported its sinking, while escaping unscathed from German air attack as she was departing the area.

With the destroyer Gordy, the minelayer Ural, four minesweepers, six torpedo boats, and the submarine L-2 she departed Kronstadt on 13 November to evacuate the remaining garrison of Hanko, on what proved to be her last voyage.

After midnight, the ships ran into a minefield and early on 14 November Surovy collided with the stalled minesweeper T-217; the collision caused a 4 m2 (43 sq ft) hole above her waterline.

This resulted in split seams, enabling flooding in her boiler and turbine rooms that created an eight-degree list to port after the turbofans and pumps failed.