The Uragan-class guard ships (light frigates) were built for the Soviet Navy as small patrol and escort ships. Eighteen were built in the 1930s and served during World War II in all four of the Soviet Fleets: Baltic, Black Sea, Northern and Pacific. The official Soviet designation was Project 2, but they were nicknamed the "Bad Weather Flotilla" by Soviet sailors by virtue of their meteorological names.

The Uragan-class ships displaced 457 tonnesat standard load and 633 tonnes at full load. The ships had 14 main watertight compartments and a double bottom only underneath the machinery and boiler rooms. The power plant was two three-drum watertube boilers and two geared turbines, each driving one shaft. Two single 102 mm guns were carried in open pivot mounts as the ship's main armament. A triple 450 mm torpedo tube mount was fitted between the funnels. Up to fifty mines or depth charges could be carried using mine rails mounted on the main deck. By the mid-1930s two semi-automatic 45 mm anti-aircraft gun (21-K) and 12.7 mm DShK AA machine guns were being fitted. Most ships in European waters received two single mounts for the fully automatic 37 mm AA guns.

Frigate Shkval laid down 24 October 1927 at the Nikolaev Shipyard (yard No.187), launched 1930, commissioned 05 March 1933 and was assigned to the Black Sea Fleet.

The ship took an active part in the Second World War as part of the Black Sea Fleet.

Frigate Shkval was decommissioned and excluded from the lists of the Black Sea Fleet on 12 November 1952.

09 May 1953 transferred to Odessa to the Navy Schcool of Mechanics, and converted to the trarining ship Sura.