The Yankee-class SSBNs served in the
Soviet Navy in three oceans: the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean beginning in the 1960s. During the 1970s about three Yankee-class were continually on patrol in a so-called "patrol box" in the Atlantic Ocean just east of
Bermuda and off the
US Pacific coast. This forward deployment of the SSBNs was seen to balance the presence of American, British, and French nuclear weapons kept in
Western Europe and on
warships (including nuclear submarines) in the surrounding Atlantic Ocean, including the
Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Atlantic. The lead boat
Leninets received its
honorific name on 11 April 1970, two and one half years after being commissioned. One Yankee-class submarine, , was lost on 6 October 1986 after an explosion and fire on board. This boat had been at sea near Bermuda, and she sank from loss of
buoyancy because of flooding. Four of her sailors died before rescue ships arrived. The events surrounding the loss of this boat has continued to be
controversial. At least one other boat in this class was involved in a collision with a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine. Because of their
increasing age, and as negotiated in the
SALT I,
START I and
START II treaties that reduce
nuclear armaments of the United States and the Soviet Union, all boats of Yankee class were disarmed,
decommissioned and sent to the
nuclear ship scrapyards. == Variants ==