The “Liman” was apparently a survey vessel built in 1970 that was converted for military use in 1989, as the Soviet Union was winding down. Probably a few too many of the rust buckets off Shemya ended up sinking so they dug up whatever hulls they weren’t using at the moment and re-purposed them. So yes, definitely wasn’t designed as a spy vessel. And BTW, found a photo of its last trip through the Bosporus. It was definitely rustier than the file photo that most news outlets ran.
And you guessed right that it rolled over before sinking, just watched the video of it going down.
]]>