Consequently he was one of the commanders of pro-government forces during the 1993 Constitutional Crisis in Moscow and the First Chechen War.

On July 6, 1995, after the Budyonnovsk hostage crisis, he succeeded Viktor Yerin as Interior Minister of Russia.

In August 1996 Alexander Lebed, who had just been appointed Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, blamed Kulikov for the disastrous Battle of Grozny and requested that President Boris Yeltsin fire Kulikov.

However, Yeltsin declined his request and in October fired Lebed from his position.

In 1997, Kulikov linked both the Cherney brothers and Reuben brothers to the Izmaylovskaya mafia which was led by Anton Malevsky in Israel, but, in March 1998, Boris Yeltsin removed Kulikov from his post along with the entire second cabinet of Viktor Chernomyrdin.