Events in the south of the Russian Empire developed rapidly, and the “Novgorod”, which entered service in 1874 and the “Vice Admiral Popov” in 1876, became a kind of deterrent in the next war with Turkey that began in 1877. The lessons of this war showed that there was a catastrophic shortage of ships on the Black Sea, the Turkish fleet practically owned the sea, and the main dream of the Russian emperors - mastering the Bosporus - remained illusory and unfulfilled. The ever-increasing arms race led to an increase in the number of battleships in all navies of the world. Russia, with only a defensive fleet in the Baltic and two slow-moving battleships in the Black Sea, was again at a disadvantage. This was taken into account, and the “Twenty-Year Program for Strengthening the Russian Fleet” adopted on August 21, 1881 opened a new era in our history. It was planned to build eight “first-class battleships” for the Black Sea. The first of these was the battleship "Ekaterina II", the construction of which began in Nikolaev at the beginning of 1883. On May 10, 1886, it was launched, and the ship entered the fleet in 1888. Note. OCR: Unfortunately, the actual military-analytical part of the issue is too small. But the “political showdown” was very reminiscent in style of some historical and political articles of the Soviet era.