The Project 206, also known under the NATO reporting name as the “Shershen-class”, was a class of Soviet Cold War-era torpedo boats developed in the late 1950s as a replacement for the Project 183 “Bolshevik”. The new Project 206 was designed with similar principles in mind as the Bolshevik, those being cheap production costs and easy maintenance. Furthermore, the Project 206 torpedo boats, similarly to the design that preceded it, were meant to be used close to the shoreline and in fair weather.

The first boat of the class was completed and commissioned with the Soviet Navy in 1960. Three Soviet shipyards produced the Project 206-class torpedo boats in USSR, but few of them have been delivered to Yugoslavia in parts and their assembly was carried out on place by Yugoslav workers. The Project 206-class torpedo boats were used by, beside the Soviet Navy, Eastern Germany, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Vietnam, North Korea and several other nations using only a small number of vessels. The Project 206 was mostly decommissioned from active service with most operators by the 1990s, although Egypt and Vietnam still used some Project 206s in the 2000s.