 More than thirty warships took part, overseen by the commander of the Northern Fleet, Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, with the "Pyotr Velikiy" as his flagship.On the morning of 12 August, the "Kursk" was scheduled to make a dummy torpedo attack on the "Pyotr Velikiy".During preparations for the attack, the "Kursk" suffered an explosion and fire in her torpedo room, followed by a second larger explosion that sank her.