Editing Yankee-class submarine (section)

== Operational history ==
[[File:Submarine Yankee I damaged.jpg|thumb|left|''K-219'' damaged]]
The Yankee-class SSBNs served in the [[Soviet Navy]] in three oceans: the [[Atlantic Ocean]], the [[Pacific Ocean]], and the [[Arctic Ocean]] beginning in the 1960s. During the 1970s about three Yankee-class were continually on patrol in a so-called "patrol box" in the Atlantic Ocean just east of [[Bermuda]]<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.theroyalgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051230/MIDOCEAN/112300121 |title=Title unknown |newspaper=[[The Royal Gazette (Bermuda)|The Royal Gazette]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060329044818/http://www.theroyalgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051230/MIDOCEAN/112300121 |archive-date=March 29, 2006 }}</ref> and off the [[United States West Coast|US Pacific coast]]. This forward deployment of the SSBNs was seen to balance the presence of American, British, and [[France|French]] nuclear weapons kept in [[Western Europe]] and on [[warship]]s (including nuclear submarines) in  the surrounding Atlantic Ocean, including the [[Mediterranean Sea]] and the [[Atlantic Ocean|Eastern Atlantic]].

The lead boat K-137 ''[[Vladimir_Lenin#Legacy|Leninets]]'' received its [[honorific name]] on 11 April 1970, two and one half years after being commissioned.

One Yankee-class submarine, {{ship|Soviet submarine|K-219||2}}, was lost on 6 October 1986 after an explosion and fire on board. This boat had been at sea near Bermuda, and she sank from loss of [[buoyancy]] because of flooding. Four of her sailors died before rescue ships arrived. The events surrounding the loss of this boat has continued to be [[controversial]].

At least one other boat in this class was involved in a collision with a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine.{{Citation needed|reason=very strong source required|date=March 2019}}

Because of their [[Obsolescence|increasing age]], and as negotiated in the [[SALT|SALT I]], [[START I]] and [[START II]] treaties that reduce [[nuclear armament]]s of the United States and the Soviet Union, all boats of Yankee class were disarmed, [[ship decommissioning|decommissioned]] and sent to the [[Ship-Submarine Recycling Program|nuclear ship scrapyard]]s.