The Bars-class submarines were ordered by the Imperial Russian Navy under their 1912 construction programme. 24 boats were ordered; 12 for the Baltic Fleet, six for the Black Sea, and six for the Siberian flotilla. The Black Sea units were built at Nikolayev. These boats were designed by Ivan Bubnov and based on the preceding Morzh class. They were single-hulled, but like the Morzh boats lacked internal bulkheads.

As designed the boats were to have two 900 horsepower electric and two diesel engines. The Black Sea boats had one 75 mm and one 37 mm gun. The torpedo armament comprised four internal 18-inch torpedo tubes and eight external torpedoes in drop collars mounted in recessed niches low in the hull.

The design had numerous shortcomings, including a lack of internal bulkheads and a slow diving time. Surviving boats were modernized after the Russian Civil War by installing bulkheads, new diesels, pumps and extra torpedo tubes (the external drop collars were removed).

Burevestnik was laid down at the Nikolaev Naval shipyard in October 1915 and launched on 15 November 1916, but was not completed for another year. She was stationed with the Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol but saw no action due to the cessation of hostilities in December 1917. In May 1918 she was seized by German occupation forces and renamed SM US-1, but was not commissioned by the German Navy. In November 1918, with the German surrender, she was taken over by the Anglo-French intervention force and transferred to the Whites under General Wrangel.

In November 1920 she was part of the evacuation of Wrangel's fleet and was interned at Bizerte in French North Africa. In 1924 she was recognized by the French as the property of the Soviet government but did not return to the USSR and was later scrapped at Bizerte.