The Admiral Nakhimov-class cruisers were a group of four light cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy just before World War I began in 1914. Construction was interrupted by the Russian Revolution and only two of the ships were eventually completed well after the end of the Russian Civil War by the Soviets. Chervona Ukraina was the first ship completed and was built to essentially the original design. Krasnyi Kavkaz was much modified and completed five years after Chervona Ukraina.

On November 11 November 1915, the plant of the Russian Shipbuilding Society ("Russud") in Nikolaev began construction of the cruiser Admiral Kornilov for the Black Sea Fleet. The launch of the cruiser Admiral Kornilov took place on 11 June 1915. There was the First World War, and the new cruiser, still unfinished, was standing at the wall of the shipbuilding plant in Nikolaev. The revolution and the civil war began.

After it, the destroyed economy of the country and the unpopularity of the fleet with some of its leaders had a negative impact on its revival. Of the eight ships of this series (the Svetlana type), the government decided to put into operation only two light cruisers: one each for the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets. And, although the cruiser was launched on 28 October 1922, it was still not completed. Finally, the fate of the cruiser ended in 1927, when it was disassembled for metal.