 Krasnyi Kavkaz , in company with the cruisers <unk> Ukraina , <unk> and a number of destroyers , laid down a defensive mine barrage protecting the Black Sea Fleet base at Sevastopol on 22 June . She provided gunfire support to Soviet forces defending Odessa and escorted convoys bringing the 157th Rifle Division into Odessa during the month of September 1941 . She also transported one battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment from Sevastopol in a successful amphibious assault behind Romanian lines to destroy Romanian coastal batteries near <unk> and <unk> . She escorted convoys from 3 — 6 October that evacuated the 157th Rifle Division from Odessa to Sevastopol and escorted the final evacuation convoy during the night of 15 – 16 October . During the Siege of Sevastopol she provided gunfire support and evacuated cut @-@ off troops from elsewhere in the <unk> into Sevastopol and brought in reinforcements from Caucasian ports . She helped to transport the <unk> Rifle Division from Novorossiysk and <unk> to Sevastopol between 7 and 13 December and the <unk> Rifle Division between 21 and 22 December , bombarding German positions in the interim . 
