Born in the aristocratic Ignatiev family as the son of General Alexei Ignatiev and Countess Sophia Ignatieva, he graduated from the Vladimir Kyiv Cadet Corps and was transferred to special classes of His Majesty's Page Corps.

After the Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904, Count Ignatyev volunteered for the front and took part in the fighting with distinction as a staff officer.

In the increasingly tense international situation on the eve of the First World War, he was sent back to Paris with the rank of colonel by order of Tsar Nicholas II on March 12, 1912, where he became Russia's military representative at the French headquarters after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

After the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, Alexey Ignatyev put himself at the service of the newly established Soviet government.

[3] After his retirement, Ignatyev dedicated his career to literature and most famously published his book of memoirs named "Fifty Years of Service".