He and his father fought in the battle on the Matsiovitsa Hill and the assault on the heavily fortified Praga suburb of Warsaw and rose to commander and lieutenant colonel.

He was granted the Order of St George 4th class on 1 January 1795 In 1796 he fought in the Persian campaign under Valerian Zubov's command at the head of a cossack regiment.

The following year he returned to the Strarodubov Regiment under Alexander Rimski-Korsakov's command on its departure for Switzerland and the War of the Second Coalition.

He was before Alexander Ostermann-Tolstoy's corps and repulsed all the French assaults, keeping his unit together and finally carrying out a bayonet charge, though he himself was wounded in the arm.

On 30 August 1811 he was made adjutant general and put in command of the 5th Cavalry Division, with which he became part of Alexander Tormassov's occupation force in 1812.