After military quarantine, he was directed to confidential state Officers School in isolated location in Kazakhstan for a period of one year.

After completion of Frunze Military Academy, he served as Commander of airborne regiments in Kaunas, Lithuania and then in Baku, Azerbaijan.

During the Ogaden War, Soviets provided assistance to Ethiopian government and Rzayev was sent to Ethiopia as an "agricultural expert".

He created an airborne brigade for the Ethiopian Ministry of Defense and led some combat operations.

[3] Rzayev came back to Azerbaijan and started working at Karabakh Public Relief Committee which supplied him with a helicopter.

On 25 September 1991, President Ayaz Mutalibov appointed him Commander of National Self-Defense Forces.

[6] Once Barshadly became the Chief of General Staff of Azerbaijani Armed Forces, he ordered him to create northwestern military corpus.

However, 30 generals, colonels and high-ranking officers, including Rzayev were laid off in 2009 due to ongoing reforms in the ministry.

[3] Rzayev was confident that existing Azerbaijani manufacturing plants have a capacity to start producing the T-72 tanks to foster the domestic military production in Azerbaijan.

[3] Rzayev took off on an airplane from the Balakan base of Technical Sports Organization of Azerbaijani Military Volunteers and jumped when the plane reached the altitude of 1,000–1,200 meters.