The Soviet Navy's Project 611 (NATO reporting name: Zulu class) were one of the first Soviet post-war attack submarines. They were roughly as capable as the American GUPPY fleet-boat conversions. They were a contemporary of the Whiskey-class submarines and shared a similar sonar arrangement. Like most conventional submarines designed 1946-1960, their design was influenced by the German Type XXI U-boat of the World War II era.The first few boats of the class were equipped with twin 57mm and twin 25mm anti-aircraft guns and no snorkels, although the guns were removed and snorkels added soon after the boats entered service. Six were converted in 1956 to become the world's first ballistic missile submarines, one armed with a single R-11FM Scud missile and five others with two Scuds each. They were designated as Project AV 611 and received the NATO reporting name of Zulu V. The missiles were too long to be contained in the boat's hull, and extended into the enlarged sail. To be fired, the submarine had to surface and raise the missile out of the sail. Soviet submarine B-67 successfully launched a missile on 16 September 1955.The Zulus were the basis for the very successful Foxtrot-class submarine, which lent their hull to the Golf class of ballistic missile submarine.

Twenty-six boats were built overall, entering service from 1952 to 1957, 8 of them in Leningrad and 18 in Severodvinsk. Their names were initially B-61 through B-82 and B-88 through B-91, with most renamed in the 1970s or 1980s. The class received the NATO reporting names Zulu I through Zulu V, the last referring to the five converted missile-firing submarines (excluding the prototype). It is unclear from references how many of each subclass were built. Most were converted to non-combat uses and eventually scrapped.

The Soviet Navy (Russian: Военно-морской флот СССР (ВМФ), tr. Voyenno-morskoy flot SSSR (VMF), lit. 'Military Maritime Fleet of the USSR') was the naval warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet (Russian: Красный флот, tr. Krasnyy flot), the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with the opposing superpower, the United States, during the Cold War period between the two countries. The Soviet Navy played a large role during the Cold War (1945-1991), either confronting the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in western Europe or power projection to maintain its sphere of influence in eastern Europe.The Soviet Navy was divided into four major fleets: the Northern, Pacific, Black Sea, and Baltic Fleets, in addition to the Leningrad Naval Base, which was commanded separately. It also had a smaller force, the Caspian Flotilla, which operated in the Caspian Sea and was followed by a larger fleet, the 5th Squadron, in the Middle East. The Soviet Navy included Naval Aviation, Naval Infantry, and the Coastal Artillery.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation inherited the largest part of the Soviet Navy and reformed it into the Russian Navy, with smaller parts becoming the basis for navies of the newly independent post-Soviet states.