 At the beginning of the battle, "Oryol" was the last ship in line of the 1st Division, which consisted of all four "Borodino"-class battleships under Rozhestvensky's direct command.The ship fired the first shots of the Battle of Tsushima when the ship's captain, Nikolay Yung, ordered her to open fire at a Japanese cruiser that was shadowing the Russian formation at a range of .Rozhestvensky had not given any pre-battle instructions to the fleet covering this situation, but he ordered Yung to cease fire after 30 rounds had been fired without effect.