[1] During the night of 6/7 May 1915 Novik, in company with ten other destroyers, mined the approaches to the port of Liepāja which was being attacked by the Germans.

Rurik opened fire, but was soon forced to turn away by a (false) submarine contact and lost sight of the Germans.

On the night of 13 May 1916, she led two of her half-sisters in search of German iron ore convoys sailing along the Swedish coast.

The Russians sank the auxiliary cruiser Hermann, even though they refused to close the escorts believing them to be far stronger than they actually were, but the freighters escaped and no other damage was inflicted.

She was refloated with assistance from the Russian icebreaker Petr Veliky, which towed her in to Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland.

During the evacuation of the Soviet Navy from Tallinn to Kronstadt during Operation Barbarossa, Yakov Sverdlov was assigned as an escort to the flagship Kirov.

[6] The wreck was located and identified on 16 June 2018; lying at a depth of 75 meters (246 ft), the ship is broken into two pieces.